Life on Apokolips
by Het Up
Summary: You won’t believe the victor when it’s “Barda Versus The Justice League!” Plus, will friendly rivalry turn into something more when Scott and Zatanna test their wits in “The Challenge of The Escape Artists!”
1. Meet Cute

Jake was a good friend. He was a class-3 Peon, same as Scott, and had a droll, earthy sense of humor that went well with Scott's somewhat more flamboyant whimsy. Which meant he was willing to put with Scott, even when they were scouring the graves for soup-bones.

"I can't believe we got soup-bone duty again," Jake said as he shoveled aside another clump of dirt. Graves on Apokolips weren't buried deep, but the ground was so hard that it made little difference. Each shovelful was a mere pittance of soil.

"Could be worse." Scott hammered into the grave-soil with his pickax. "We could be one of the poor suckers in training with the Furies!"

A klaxon sounded, followed by the well-known goose-stepping of the Female Fury battalion. Within a matter of moments, the cemetery was swarming with Furies standing at statuesque attention.

"Attention orphans!" Granny Goodness shrilled out of the nearest loudspeaker. "The Furies will be training with you today in mercy management!"

There was a chorus of groans.

"Be honored that you are allowed to participate in the cleansing of mercy and compassion from our valiant warriors! In Darkseid's infinite fairness, only the lazy will be volunteered. Work sloppy and you will feel pain! Work hard and you will feel less pain!"

The orphans redoubled their efforts. Scott, however, only had eyes for one thing and it wasn't the grave.

"Who is _that_?" he exhaled.

"Scott, less talk, more pick. This soil isn't going to loosen itself."

Scott hammered the soil, breaking it up into grits for Jake. "Look at her. She's beautiful."

"She's a _Fury_," Jake said. "They're all scarred and mutated and…" He noticed one of the larger Furies overhearing.

"But beauty is in the eye of the beholder!" Scott said quickly. The Fury shocked them both with her pain-baton before resuming her stroll through the headstones.

Scott rubbed the sore spot where the pain-baton had hit. "I don't think she needs any lessons in mercy management… but look! _She_ does!"

The woman he was looking at was the only Fury who wasn't enthusiastically thrashing the orphans. She very much looked like she was willing to, but her eyes shied away from the torment and her pain-stick remained in its holster.

"She, she, she! Which one? They all look alike!"

"The one with no scars!" Scott hissed admiringly. "Not even a _bruise_!"

"So she's really good at hurting people," Jake said dismissively. "So's my mom, you don't see me bragging about it."

"But she hasn't even ritualistically mutilated herself! Every promotion-hungry Fury does that! And she's still so… pretty."

"Duck!"

Jake pulled Scott behind the headstone. They dug harder.

"What? What?"

"I think she saw us looking at her."

"She did?"

"She may have."

"She may have?"

Scott looked over the top of the headstone.

"Keep digging!" Jake ordered.

Scott waved at her.

"Don't wave!"

The woman looked at Scott, than pointedly looked away.

"You have a _death wish_, Free. A death wish!"

"It's Apokolips. We're supposed to have death wishes."

"For Darkseid, not for ourselves!" Jake realized what he had said and quickly censored himself. "I mean, we're supposed to want to die for Darkseid, not for… some _girl_!"

"She's not just some girl, Jake. She's merciful and beautiful and _she waved back!_"

"Darkseid's testes, there's something wrong with you."

"Tell her I'm being sluggish."

"What?"

"Just do it!"

Jake stood up as if fearing an Omega Beam would destroy him at any moment. "Excuse me, ma'ma? You there, ma'am?"

The woman looked at him as if he had just been scraped off someone's shoe. "_Yes_?"

"My friend here… well, he's not my friend, acquaintance… is slacking off."

"I just don't _feel_ like working today," Scott said in a listlessly theatrical manner, one arm leaning against the headstone.

The woman grumbled and bulldozed toward them with hearty stomps. She arrived at the grave, all seven feet of her. Scott and Jake could both fit comfortably into her shadow.

"Maybe you could let me off with a warning?" Scott offered with a smile.

"**Dig**."

"Digging!" Jake said as they both got back to work. The woman circled around at a short distance.

"She didn't shock me. You know what that means?"

"You have the devil's own luck?"

"I already know that," Scott said with a dismissive wave. "I think it means she likes me."

"She's a Fury! They don't like anyone!"

"She's not like other Furies…" Scott said as his digging slowed. He looked over at the woman. "Excuse me, ma'am…"

She glared at Scott. "Speak."

"What's your name?"

The woman crossed her arms. "Barda."

"Barda. That's a pretty name."

Jake thought he would have a coronary. "Excuse my friend, Bar… ma'am. Heatstroke, you see. He's not in his right mind."

"I can see that."

"It's my best quality," Scott said, grinning. "Well, okay, top ten."

"**Cadet Barda!**" Granny Goodness shouted. "Your tally shows no pain recipes. Step it up!"

Barda looked around for someone to shock, but all of them looked thoroughly cowed and miserable. No one who deserved to be…

Scott checked his watch, which did not exist. "Say, don't we get a lunch break around here?"

Barda shocked him in the stomach.

"Coffee?"

Shocked again.

"Maybe just a cigarette?"

"Three shocks in as many ticks!" Granny Goodness said, impressed. "Don't overwork him, now. You could kill him and his bones aren't big enough for good soup."

Scott began digging again, nursing his stomach. "So, what do you do when you aren't torturing people?"

Barda arched an eyebrow. How the hell could he still be giving lip? It was virtually courageous. No one was courageous on Apokolips. You did what you had to do to avoid pain and death. Facing injury to make a point was anathema to all Darkseid stood for.

Barda… found him somewhat… interesting.

"Think about torturing people," Barda said.

"Oh, me too. Personally, I'll just kick a guy a bunch. I'm old-school that way."

Barda's lip spasmed upward.

"Hey! You smiled!"

"I did not!" Barda said indignantly.

"He saw it," Scott said, jerking his thumb towards Jake.

"No, I didn't."

"What's this about a smile?" Granny Goodness demanded as she stampeded to their worksite.

"Me, ma'am!" Scott sprung to his feet. "I was just thinking about your face and one thing led to another…"

Granny Goodness unhitched her whip from her belt. Barda stepped in front of her, delivering her pain-baton to Scott's knee. "Sir, allow me!"

"That's a good girl. Show initiative for Granny," Granny Goodness said approvingly before walking away.

Scott gagged on the floor like a fish out of water. After a moment, Barda hauled him to his feet.

"Thanks."

"You're thanking me for shocking you?" Barda asked.

"Beats the alternative. And it was worth it to see you smile."

And Barda, having not learned her lesson, smiled again. 


	2. Open Windows

There were no windows on Apokolips. There were openings designed to allow "fresh" air in, and they were covered by grates. The sound that the grates made when a rock hit them was **pok**. The sound repeated twice more before Barda picked herself up off the floor where she had been sleeping (alone, as she'd earned by being class valedictorian) and went to the window. Two stories down (out of a hundred and fifty-two), Scott was clinging to a symmetrical beanstalk covered in foot-long thorns. He gestured for her to open the grate.

"GUARDS!"

* * *

The next night, Scott was on the vine again. This time he had armed himself for the thorny climb with Parademon gauntlets. Thus armored, he'd climbed a bit higher than before. 

**Pok**.

Barda came to the window, as if she'd been sleeping lightly for him.

"Okay, maybe you didn't know it was me earlier. I'm not trying to assassinate you or anything, I just wanna talk…"

"Scott Free, was it?" Barda asked.

"You know my name!" Scott said, trying to climb higher.

"I know lots of names. Like Auric, Franz, Yorun…"

"Who are they?"

"The GUARDS!"

* * *

**Pok.**

Barda came to the window in a rotten mood, a bruise on her brow where Granny Goodness had slapped her earlier. Scott let her glare at him for a moment, then yelled "GUARDS!"

* * *

The fourth night Scott climbed past the window, then tied a rope around the vine and climbed down it to land on the windowsill. He locked his fingers into the grate to steady himself and saw, in the hellish orange light of Apokolips's many fires, Barda curled up on the floor. She looked cold and Scott felt a swell of pity for her, that became a swell of something else when he noticed she was naked. He cleared his throat. 

"Five more minutes, Granny," she muttered, rolling over in her sleep.

Scott rolled his eyes, picked a rock out from his pocket, and threw it at the grate from a distance of about six feet. **Pok**. Barda sat straight up.

"You! Again!"

"Whoa whoa whoa!" Scott succeeded, by sheer force of will, in stopping Barda from yelling. "Before you call the guards for the traditional beatdown and torture, you mind if I put this back?" He pulled a folder out of his nightshade jacket. It was stuffed with files, from ordinary typewriter spool to modern holographics.

"What is it?" Barda asked suspiciously as she grabbed her Mega Rod (she slept with it like a teddy bear, Scott noted) and put on her battle armor.

"Your permanent file. I nicked it on my way up. Interesting reading, but you probably wouldn't want to have a look. It's just what all the most important people in your life think of you. How boring is that?"

After a long pause, Barda slid the grate open. Technically, it wasn't supposed to open, but every good cadet had ways around that. Scott sidled inside the room like he was afraid she would change her mind if given a nanosecond to spare.

"I don't like you," Barda said. "I'm only doing this to get a leg-up on my education."

"Well, let's get started. Just consider me your tutor, except not in that icky student-teacher way."

Barda would've grabbed the papers from him if she knew how to read. Furies didn't need to know that, or writing, or what music sounded like, or how to roller-skate, or any number of things Scott imagined teaching her.

"Let's see…" he began. "Close-quarters combat: A. Long-range combat: A. Negotiation: B."

"B?"

"You accepted too many surrenders. Tactics: A. Artillery: A. Command: A. Marksmanship: A. Piloting: A."

Barda was practically aglow, although her face still worried at the B. Scott was glad to be the cause of such happiness, even indirectly. "Skip to the end. Final grade." She crossed her fingers.

Scott looked. "Granny Goodness recommends transfer to the Pleasure Corps, where she might learn how to service more fitting… this can't be right." He said the last part at the same time as Barda, who grabbed the file from him. She looked at the incomprehensible words as if she could stare them into making sense.

"Explain!" She shoved the file back into his arms.

Scott quoted directly from the paper: "'Barda exhibits excellent skill, but is insubordinate and slow to use lethal force. Her taste for battle is not half what it should be and she has a strong streak of mercy which our conditioning has been unable to remove. She is not Fury material."

Barda reached for the file, let her fingers coil halfway there, then noticed a drop of liquid crawling down the side of her nose. "I'm bleeding. I need medical attention. I need…" She was suffocating.

Scott grabbed her arm when she tried to move past him. By the feel of it she had more than enough power to throw him through the roof, but instead Barda let herself be halted. "They're just tears. You're crying."

He pulled a handkerchief from his coat and dabbed at her face.

"Furies don't cr…" and the horrifying realization that she would never be a Fury hit her. She _was_ crying.

Scott patiently wiped the tears away. "Crying. Haven't you ever felt sad before? Happy?" He stared into her eyes, which seemed a particularly rocky shade of gray. "Haven't you ever felt anything?"

"Annoyance," Barda said. "Mostly at you."

"Yeah, I get that a lot."

He smiled at her and Barda felt an overwhelming urge to express how she felt. In the Corps, such weakness was swiftly punished, but she felt as if she could trust him. Moreover, as if he could understand.

"All my life I've wanted to be a Fury," Barda began, her voice haltering.

"Why?"

"What?"

"Why a Fury? They're… they're not nice people," Scott said, fingering the old fractures where his bones had knitted themselves back together. "You are. Well, after a fashion. I mean, you could be nicer."

Barda was careening off the tracks. Her life had been perfectly set out in front of her. Granny had _said_ she was the best. She would receive a scholarship to Omegaversity, lead the charge against New Genesis and eventually die in battle, die for Darkseid. Aside from a few moral quibbles, her life had been fine. But it was all a lie. Strange urges were filling her to the brim and she could no longer picture Darkseid speaking at her future, herself as general of his armies, not even the next few minutes. Her immediate future should be sleeping.

She didn't feel like going back to sleep. She felt like rebelling. They thought she was too merciful? She'd show _them_ mercy!

"Come here," she said to Scott, who tensed as if she were a cobra that had just showed its hood. "Come here!"

He meekly stepped closer to her, returning the handkerchief to his coat pocket. She took his hand roughly and shoved her keycard into it. "This will get you back inside the orphanage without their ever having noticed you were gone."

Scott looked at it, stunned. It would be nice to go to sleep without being whipped first. He liked sleeping on his back, for one thing.

"I don't know what to say," he said.

"I like hearing that. Come back some time, okay? I might want to talk to someone… before I join the Pleasure Corps. Stick around." She shook the file a little, or perhaps her hands were just shaking. "I think you're the only friend I've got."

"I'll be around," Scott promised as he slipped back out the window.

Barda left it open all night.


	3. Captured All Over Again

Scott hung in the shaft of Firepit 137-B . It was one of the older firepits, and would be decommissioned soon. It no longer worked. But then, Scott didn't know what firepits did in the first place. He doubted they did nothing, as he had a hard time imagining anything in Apokolips that didn't serve some purpose, and efficiently at that. But it wasn't out of the realm of possibility for someone in Darkseid's hierarchy to have a sick enough sense of humor to create firepits just because there were no volcanoes anymore.

He had been waiting for fifteen minutes. He loaded the food back into the picnic basket and lowered it down by pulley to the not-yet-cold embers of the firepit. He thought about Barda. Hoisted the basket back up and checked his reflection in the plate he'd polished to a glossy sheen. He'd done his best to find enough clean water to wash his face clean, with a little left over for his hands. His palms were pink and surprisingly soft, but his knuckles, everything under his jawline and chin, and the back of his neck were all stained in deep, sometimes purplish colors. They reminded him of bruises.

"Someone hit you?" Barda asked. She sounded concerned.

Scott half-turned and, like a card-dealer, began setting out lunch. It was the best he could scrounge and he'd had to trade in a considerable amount of favors to get food and homemade wine from as far as Apocalypeninsula. "Hungry?"

She stowed her Mega-Rod in her belt and, cat-like, scrambled down the weird mixture of ladders and stairways to where he was seated. She was dressed in full armor, with her cape flowing behind her and the horns of her helmet sharpened to shiny points.

He held out a mug of wine, which was crudely festooned out of ceramics. It still had some scar-like bones stenciled into it, although Scott had done his best to paste them over. "Thirsty?"

"Granny Goodness gives me all the water I need."

"This isn't water," he said, shoving it under her nose like an overeager puppy.

She sniffed it disdainfully. "I can tell that."

"Come on. You owe me. If it weren't for your 'capturing' me, you'd be transferred out of the Furies and into the Pleasure Corps."

Barda, whose hands had been planted at her waist, pulled her cape shawl-like around her. Their small deception against Darkseid didn't sit well with her. "You'd be recaptured anyway. There's no crime in enjoying your… charity."

Scott took the mug away from her, sipping at it. "Granny hates charity. Darkseid too."

"Darkseid isn't… always right," Barda confessed, immediately looking around to see if someone had heard.

"That's what I keep saying." Scott smiled and offered her the mug. This time it was accepted.

"One drink. Then back to the orphanage."

"Some food too." Scott unwrapped a sandwich. "I hate the chow there."

"You could always join the military." Military got to eat what they killed.

"I hate violence."

"I don't."

Barda gave him a look as she languorously sipped her drink. Some of it slid down her strong chin and Scott wiped it away with the only clean napkin in Apokolips.

"Okay. I'm not very good at violence. I don't like it when it's pointless, random, gratuitous… and directed against me."

"You think I'd hurt you?" Barda asked.

"I think you don't always realize what's most important in life."

"Maybe we just don't agree."

Using slow, precise motions, Scott concentrated on ripping open a bag of chips. "We both know you enjoy this more than you enjoy hurting people."

"Cheesy Chips?"

"Spending time with me."

Barda held out her hand and let Scott pour out some chips into it. Then she leaned back, masticating each, one at a time. "I remember as a child, there was an invasion from Dimension Nazi. Third Reich demons and Adolucifer, press-ganging everyone they met into their war machine. The Furies beat them back. I wanted to do that. Defend Apokolips. Serve Darkseid."

"Meet interesting people. And kill them."

"Haven't killed you yet," Barda pointed out. 

"Would you? If they ordered you to?"

"They wouldn't. You're harmless."

"Harmless?" Scott repeated, offended.

"Nice," Barda amended.

"You have more faith in the system than I do." Scott guzzled down some more wine. "It's not just flawed, you know. It's broken. Ground up, top down. Pointless cruelty… pointless everything."

"You really hate it here, don't you?"

Scott rubbed his knuckles between his fingers. "Not always."

Barda looked over the small, paltry picnic. "Nice food you found here. I… hope you didn't go to much trouble."

"It would be worth it."

"For what? Me arguing with you about 'the glory of Darkseid'?"

Scott smiled, just a little. "You being sarcastic when you talk about Darkseid's glory. Watching the look on your face when you taste good food. That lock of hair that fell down between your eyes."

Barda twisted it around a gloved forefinger. "You brought me here to show me something and it's almost here, isn't it?"

Scott's smile widened slightly. "What makes you think that?"

"You always have a trick up your sleeve. You're Scott Free."

It was quite possible Scott would never stop grinning. "That was worth two meals. Come on."

They climbed, hand over foot, up the side of the shaft, leaving their waste to be burnt away by the next, long-overdue flare. Scott, slowed by a full stomach, slipped once. Barda grabbed his wrist protectively. Scott didn't need it and didn't react further than he already had, but patted Barda on her padded shoulder as they finished their climb.

"We should get going," Barda said. "If you're gone from the orphanage for longer than one night…"

"Just wait.."

Scott sat down and, unprompted, Barda joined him. He sat cross-legged, her on her backside with her legs drawn up to her chest. The butt of her Mega-Rod dragged against the metallic ground.

"I see someone saw fit to give you a Mega-Rod."

"Granny Goodness. She says I'm showing real potential."

Scott laughed harshly before he could stop himself. "For what?"

"I know you've been hit with Mega-Rods in the past. But I'm not going to be one of those people."

"I wish it were your choice. But that's why the system's broken. It's Darkseid's choice and Granny's choice… everyone's choice but Barda's."

Scott felt the surprising weight of Barda leaning against his side. "And what do you want to choose for Barda?"

"Me."

Barda took off her helmet and her hair tumbled out over her shoulders like an avalanche over a mountain range. It was long and dark and did not belong to Apokolips (which would have insisted she cut it short). Scott had no frame of reference for it. He couldn't compare it to ebony or onyx or the space between a starry night. He did not know of such things.

So he combed her hair with his fingers, watching as it rose in his hand and fell back to her broad shoulders, and tried to think of a name for the sensation. The sun rose in the North, giving them a rare look at its splendor unencumbered by the blinding light and obscuring fumes of the firepits. Barda watched and let Scott run his hand through her hair, not saying anything until the sun was far overhead.

"You should feed me more often," Barda said, rubbing her stomach.

"Nah. I'm not much of a cook."

"Fine. I'll barbecue a rat for you some time."

"It's a date."


	4. First Time for Everything

In the shadows of Apokolips, a large figure detached from her assigned hive and moved through the darker-ness of night cycle with surprisingly grace. It was a short journey. The prisons of Apokolips were built frequently so that every settlement could benefit from the morale boost. After three minutes of jogging, she reached her destination. The hounds gave her some pause, but upon seeing her they quickly tucked their tails between their cyborg legs and went about their business elsewhere.

"Scott?" she whispered into the calcified bars on the window of the barnacle-like jail cell, which grew out of the landscape of Apokolips like an abscess.

"Wha? Who?"

Despite the torture apparatus he was strapped into, Scott Free had managed to free and pop back in his limbs. He now appeared rather comfortable, albeit hanging upside-down. With a little shimmy he disengaged himself from his footholds and dropped to the ground. He landed feet-first like a cat, although with a little showy too-do that no cat would indulge in.

Barda considered clapping - it had been impressive - but that would only encourage him. "Last night, you said you had permission to see me."

"I might have fudged," Scott admitted as he gripped the barred windows of his cell.

"You can't keep sneaking away! Some day you're gonna get in real trouble."

He smiled, unconcerned. "Some day you'll come with me."

As always, she was torn between frowning at his words and smiling at his certainty. "Apokolips is my home. Yours too."

Scott scowled uncomfortably, like a boy reminded of a test he had yet to study for, then brightened a little. His grip tightened on the bars. "That's enough about me. What about you?"

Barda really hated being put on the spot like that. She, like all of Apokolips's citizenry, was a worm. Why did he insist on there being something memorable about her? At least when they talked about him, it was because he was a freedom-loving freak who scoffed at the loving tyranny of the great Darkseid, which made for a great ice-breaker.

"I'm..." Barda scrambled to think of something relating to herself. "I'm being docketed this month's pay again."

He stood straighter. "Oh?" Scott replied, interested.

"Yes. Beauty unbecoming an officer." No matter how many duels she fought, her face had not yet been perfected by a scar. Her opponents were simply not good enough to lay their weapons upon her.

Scott reached through the bars, cupping her face. He was the first living person to do so without recoiling in disgust... and, curiously, Barda felt the same way.

"I like you just the way you are," Scott said, just before he pulled her into the first kiss for both of them.

And for the first time in Apokolips's long, sad history... there was joy. 


	5. Xihet

There were many shades of darkness on Apokolips. Every child knew how to catalog them, which were dangerous and which were safe (to a degree. This was Apokolips, after all). The current darkness was rather stygian, which did not immediately make Barda think of masturbation.

It was their mid-term for Pleasure Corps training. So far their studies had been theoretical instead of practical, to Scott's unending relief. She didn't have the heart to tell him it was because the targets liked to break trainees in themselves. The final exam would be their most… hands-on training so far. Barda looked in the mirror of the spotlight, seeing her own dark reflection, and flashed back to her instructor's words.

"Sometimes, your target may be incapable of achieving erection," Sexa had said. It was always 'the target,' never the lover. "In which case you will provide him with viewing entertainment. Spread your legs and display yourself. Then masturbate. I trust you all know how to masturbate, correct?"

Barda didn't. It wasn't that she didn't have a sex dream, as infuriatingly ephemeral wet dreams had proven, but it wasn't like there was anyone or anything in Apokolips to feel sexy about. Who in Darkseid's twisted vision of utopia could be described as beautiful to her strange fetish, which had come to value beauty over strength and humor over discipline? Including herself. She took a step into the light and saw her reflection more vividly. Despite her graceful movements, her armor looked clunky and she felt like a block of particularly unaesthetic clay in it.

If Scott were here, he'd say something illuminating and no doubt irritatingly lyrical about how blocks of clay could be molded into a beautiful butterfly (oh, you've never seen a butterfly? I saw them in a transmission from Earth. Wanna see?). But she hadn't seen him since the kiss. It was strange. Before that night, she had no idea what it even was… not even a clue from the transmissions Scott had pirated. But as soon as his lips moved against hers, it had all clicked into place. That scared her more than anything else. Before that, she had seen Scott as quirky, out there, a bit of a freak really. But never as… like her.

But if he were here… Barda asked herself what would Scott Free do? The solution seemed obvious. If she didn't feel sexy in armor, take off the armor. The chainmail-like garment lost its rigidity as she took it off, becoming as supple as the cape pooled at the floor. Her helmet and Mega-Rod made the most impressive thumps. All that was left was her boots and gloves, which she would need for combat. Barda was always ready for combat.

Molding the clothing into a small blanket, just like Scott had done at the Fire Pit, she sat down on it. Looked at herself in the mirror. It was still dark, still smelled of sulfur and toxin, and she could still hear cries of pain and explosions in the distance. Barda closed her eyes and tuned them out. The first step of masturbation was to get comfortable and if she couldn't get comfortable _here_, she would somewhere else.

She wasn't here, in this hellish place that had been a home to her for as long as she could remember. She was in that serene place from the movie Scott had showed her, the one about the butterfly-man. They had islands on Apokolips, but those were surrounded by rivers of sludge and lava and flaming sludge that vaguely resembled lava. Not on Earth. There the water was crisp and cool and blue like Scott's eyes, and it splashed against the sandy shores with a quiet, rhythmic beat.

Barda drummed a single palm against her taut, muscular belly. A thousand sit-ups a day. Hell yes she was molded. Molded into the biggest, baddest Barda around. And if Scott were here, he'd tell her the same thing. He'd tell her how beautiful she was, how perfect she was… how much of a Fury she was. And she'd tell him that she'd be one of the good Furies, she'd tell him…

What had she told him? Did he even know how much she appreciated him? How much he meant to her? By Darkseid's eyes, infuriating man! Even his memory wouldn't give any peace. If he were here she'd push him to the floor, watch him squirm on the belly and demand…

"_Ohh_." Her hand rubbing concentric circles over her abs, a light touch like Scott would use, she went back to the beach and took Scott with her. He would be happy there, in the sun and waves, although it wouldn't be long before he started building a boat to escape. It was his nature. He would cut the wood into planks, the sweat milling over his naked body. He didn't show it, but there was power in his lithe body. He moved like a sleek cat, with rounded, athletic motions. He could handle himself in a fight. He could bleed. He could live.

And each evening, when the dwindling sunlight forbade any further work on the raft, he would come to her. She could hear the waves, covering up the penetration of distant noises. She remembered them because she could recall thinking that they were such a pretty sound and Scott had told her the legend of how you could hear the ocean forever in something called a couch shell. And he had promised he'd bring her one some day…

Barda cupped a hand and held it over her ear, imagining it was Scott holding the shell to her ear. If she concentrated hard, she could remember the sound of the ocean. It was only drowned out by her heartbeat.

Her other hand touched her right breast and found it surprisingly cool, yet not clammy. Further exploration revealed it had swollen and both nipples were taut. She tried to recall Scott's _scent_ and had it, suddenly, that fastidious clean smell, slightly earthy where he rubbed himself with mushrooms to get rid of the many odors of Apokolips. But it never quite managed to cover up the sweat that soaked his clothing or the sulfur that bristled from his pores. Was it wrong that she enjoyed that little bit of Apokolips he tried so hard to scrub clean?

But on the beach, Barda didn't have to think of such things. She would still feel her home that wasn't a home in the way his hands danced over her. She brought her hands to her mammaries and cupped them from beneath, feeling their height and weight in appraisal. Scott would find them pleasing. How could he not? She would hear her home in the occasional endearment barked in the guttural tongue of Darkseid's land. _Xihet_, she would have Scott call her during the act; Shell. His couch shell, letting him hear Apokolips wherever he went. They would not forget their heritage. They would stay strong. For each other, if not for Darkseid. For themselves.

She squeezed her nipples as tightly as she could, shivering as a wave of sudden lust hit her, tossed her about like a ship on the ocean. She hadn't been ready, hadn't been prepared. Wasn't being a good soldier but fuck it, who cared? The toes of her outstretched feet touched the cold surface of the mirror as she rubbed her naked legs together.

Scott would hold the couch shell to her ear and try to get her to take it, so he could go and get some sleep, but she would take hold of his wrist. He would try to pull away and realize that hers was the superior strength. "Where are you going?" she would ask, padding towards him on bare feet through the sand (what an interesting sensation that would be). And he would say "Anywhere you go." And she would pull him to the bed and say "Here. Now."

Barda shivered with delight. Kneading her breasts tighter and tighter as if in an attempt to contain the lust surging through her, she finally let herself groan out loud. The sound reverberated through the darkness, off the mirror, echoing her own satisfaction which was even now sloshing through her body to pool between her legs. She could feel the pool growing larger and larger, exerting more and more pressure to bust the dam that held it back. Her hands became Scott's as she gave her body to him totally and freely.

He wouldn't need much persuading, Scott Free. She knew the way his eyes centered on her, how they drifted from her face when he wasn't careful. There was nothing cruel or demeaning in his stare, like there was with the not-yet-neutered Parademons or the salivating higher-ups. Instead there was a promise, an appreciation, and she would let him fulfill both. His hands… her hands…

Her hands lifted and massaged her breasts as she began to gyrate her body slowly, allowing the feelings to take control of her mind. She pinched a nipple, hard, torturing it between thumb and forefinger to eek out every last quotient of sensation from it! Scott would be rough with her! He would push her to her limits, make her hurt where it counted. But he would not be satisfied with any one area of worship. He would escape.

One of her hands left her breast and glided along the flesh of her rib-cage, feeling out where the bones had cracked and sprained. Never from an opponent's weapon, but from pushing herself hard, to be the best. And she _was_ the best, not a whore for the Pleasure Corps. She had healed and her bones had hardened. The supple skin of her stomach was trawled next, her hand inching its way closer and closer to the top of her ebony pubic hair. It was shaved into a neat, militant triangle. When she was on the island, she would trim it into another shape. Any other shape. Perhaps she would let Scott decided. Perhaps she would let Scott shave her…

Barda forced her eyes open so she could see herself touching her own body. Totally absorbed in what she was doing, she found that watching what was happening added to her excitement. This was hers. No one else's. To give as she saw fit. The notion delighted and terrified her.

Parting her long, corded legs, Barda ran one hand down the inside of a thigh until it was groping at the edge of her pussy. Holding her breath, she gently sought out her clit. She pressed hard.

Her foot kicked out automatically, cracking the mirror with its heel as a hot wave of lust shot through her. The pool had become a waterspout, switched on by her probing finger. Her mouth opened, gasping for more air and for a moment Barda was unable to move, amazed at the intensity of the feeling she could wring from her own body.

_Why?_ she thought in confusion. _Why is it so much stronger now?_ She had tried it before, but all she had gotten were a few dull twitches… nothing compared to the thrill and glory of combat. Just as well it wasn't really Scott touching her. If he sensed such… vulnerability in her, she'd never hear the end of it.

Perhaps she'd let him know anyway.

Trusting herself, knowing that the whole operation was safe, under her own control, Barda continued to titillate her throbbing clitoris. She wanted to plunge her fingers inside herself right away, but she knew by instinct that if she teased herself a little first, it would be much better a few seconds later. What was it Scott always said? "The magic of the trick isn't in the trick, it's in how you sell it."

She knew she could climax just from touching her clitoris, but this time, her first time in every real sense of the word, Barda wanted to feel her fingers… Scott's… inside her. Regretfully pulling her hand away from her almost painfully erect clit, Barda sought out her labia, clumsily at first. She snaked her middle finger inside herself and was surprised at the damp, tight warmth she found. There, as the opening throbbed around her finger, she retracted it quickly, moving it along her thigh as she parted her legs widely.

Her other hand was massaging her breast, pulling and squeezing it violently, kneading the soft mound of flesh and pressing the hard nipple harshly against the acid-pitted palm of her glove. She opened and closed her hand against the pliant flesh and with each constriction felt a new riptide of pain and desire. Not long now.

With one hand now plucking her breast out into a cone and releasing it, she opened her other hand and drew it lightly along the quivering flesh of her inner thigh, once more entering herself. Finally she had her finger up inside, exploring her own inner terrain, fascinated by the musculature of her own pussy.

Her body began to thrash as it rebelled against the teasing she was giving it, the self-destructive lack of fulfillment. Barda forced herself to remain still. She stopped writhing, didn't make any excess movement at all. Her only outward reaction was sudden tremors convulsing her muscles from time to time when she touched a particularly sensitive place. She named each pleasure and had a sudden vision of Scott exploring her, her patient delight as he rediscovered each… perfect… _note…_

"Scott," she whispered softly, so only he could hear. Miles away, in the pits of whatever dungeon he was rotting in or quarry he was working at, she knew he could hear her. Barda had never screamed in pain during combat, never given a war cry or spoken up in her own defense, but she would give Scott this. His name on her lips. Let men do whatever they like to her. They would never hear their name spoken with this much warmth, this much passion. And Scott, the front of his body speckled with sand where he had laid down between her open legs, would look up at her, add another finger, and say _Barda_.

"Is there a problem, Cadet 40522?" Sexa asked over the loudspeaker. _Now there is._ She had forgotten, for the moment, that she had an audience. Technically, she was supposed to be "performing" for them. Never.

"No, no problem," Barda panted. "Just a small… miscalculation."

"Solve it, Cadet 40522," the loudspeaker barked. "Your time limit is almost up."

Again her mind turned to how Scott would escape. She couldn't force this with power, but she could overcome it with cleverness. Barda picked up her Mega-Rod.

It was a fifteen inches long, no more or less, with its heft long familiar to her. She was determined to fill herself with every inch, satisfy herself with every ounce of its weight.

She laid down with her legs splayed and her knees drawn up. The Mega-Rod came with a vibrate function, designed to shatter glass and shake apart walls. She switched it down to a low throb and was overcome with the vibrations passing from the thick, hard metal into her hand. They were soft, sensual, so at odds with the brutal purpose of the device. A strange soothing feeling came over her as she brought the tip of the makeshift dildo to the front of her neck, touching the skin experimentally. Her whole body was like a sponge, soaking up the soothing feelings that shouldn't even_exist_ in a place like this, and she was relaxed to a completely languid state as she felt her whole being melt into a pool, washing and waving with the delicate sensations coursing through her.

She pictured the Mega-Rod as Scott's cock, held erect and ready in her hand. Lubrication was key. Some of the men she would be expected to service were virtual giants. Kalibak was said to be particularly large, although sessions with him were also said to be thankfully short-lived. She pictured the Mega-Rod as Scott's cock, held erect and ready in her hand. Lubrication was key. Some of the men she would be expected to service were virtual giants. Kalibak was said to be particularly large, although sessions with him were also said to be thankfully short-lived.

Barda licked her lips and opened them for the Mega-Rod. Scott's cock wouldn't have the coppery metallic flavor of her weapon. She didn't know if it would be sweet or sour and she didn't care. If would be hers to work between her lips until she swallowed everything he gave her. She imagined the sounds Scott would make as she did this for him and her hand seemed to slip between her thighs of its own accord. She only noticed when her hand came into the first contact with the stray wisps of her pubic hair. With her fingers barely touching the valley of her legs, she could feel herself begin to moisten. The Mega-Rod was well-lathered and she felt like a warrior ready to go into battle. She pulled it from her mouth, observing with some satisfaction how thoroughly slathered it was, and brought it slowly down her body.

Her hand was doing its best to stretch out her pussy in preparation, adding finger after finger. The more she got, the more she wanted. She imagined that Scott was about to pounce on her body with the fury of a wild boom tube and ravish her with all his might. She made low, throaty moans of wanton pleading; begging her imaginary lover to fuck harder. The observers would dismiss them as grunts.

The machine hummed softly in her hand. Its effects were no longer soothing. Each second increased the mounting excitement building within her and her legs spread wide open again, begging that she feed the Mega-Rod to her hungry cunt. She could hold herself back no longer. Taking a deep breath, she moved the dildo along her thighs, belly, and ass in small, delicious circles, each time coming closer and closer to her core. Her juices were pooling on the floor between her thigh and she intended to put them to good use. Closer and closer she circled her weapon of choice, coming into contact with the first fleecy wisps of her pussy hair, inching through that hair, until, at last, the warm tip of the Mega-Rod touched her opening like a living thing.

"Don't be gentle, Scott," she subvocalized, or thought she subvocalized, or would've thought she'd subvocalized if she was capable of thought. "Take me. Take me like we both deserve."

She did, becoming her own Prince Charming, allowing her autonomous hand to drift along the flailing legs and rubbing thighs, pulling the Mega-Rod closer and closer to her cunt, and she opened her legs, knowing that she would not be able to resist one second longer.

Laying full on her back, she spread her labia and touched her seething cunt with just the tip, just an experimental _tip_, of the Mega-Rod.

Scott entered her.

"Yes," she said, fearful to open her eyes and destroy the illusion. Whatever part of her was receiving pleasure, it was entirely separate from the hand driving a makeshift dildo between her legs. It was on a beach, listening to the waves.

On the beach, she jerked her hips desperately up against it. Every inch, every pound, dug further into fertile earth. She twisted the dial higher and, ever obedient, the Mega-Rod vibrated wildly, washing her body in a delirious sea of lust. The metal, no longer hot or cold but lukewarm, felt soothing in her depths. She undulated her hips against the imaginary lover. The twinge of pain as her hymen broke was submerged entirely beneath her adrenaline. She would not notice the blood until it had long since dried.

_Xihet_, a voice said in her ear. _Xihet, my lovely Xihet…_

She forced her eyes open with a conceited effort to see that she had driven seven… _eight_ inches of the Mega-Rod inside. She felt every pound and it was the most intense feeling she had ever encountered. She had to control her breathing. Momentarily putting aside the fantasy of Scott, she matched her heaving gasps with the rhythm of her masturbation and her undulating hips. That just made it better. It was as though Scott and her were in perfect alignment, working as a single unit.

"Ooohhh! Hhhuuuhhh! Gggaaahhh!"

She buried Scott's name in gibberish, disseminated the syllables in mad ranting and nonsense utterances.

"Uuummm! Ooohhh!"

Her hips were thrashing wildly with the mounting climax and she tossed her head from side to side as she cried out in utter delight.

"Hhhuuuhhh! Ooohhh! Uh! Uh! Uh! Aaahhh!"

She summoned up her discipline to hold back her orgasm for as long as she could, but it was impossible to deny her body the pleasure she wanted so badly. She had crossed the point of no return.

"Uuuuuuuhhhhhhhhilh!"

She thrust the Mega-Rod into herself so fast it was a blur of motion. Her head thrashed against the floor, only the piled folds of her cape preventing her from denting the ground. Her shimmering black hair was hurtled from side to side, covering her sweating face and placing loose strands in her open mouth. Finally, she stiffened her whole body as she felt the irresistible explosion of her orgasm force its way wildly up from her pussy.

"YES! YES! YES!"

Without so much as a deep breath, she drove the Mega-Rod up to the hilt into her burning cunt. Lifting her body almost completely off the floor save for her shoulders and polished boots, she let out her first battle cry.

"SCOOOOOOOOOOoooottt-"

The end of the word trailed off as abruptly as a television being turned off. She froze, not a single sound being produced by her taut body. The dam had shattered so completely there was no evidence it had ever existed. Her whole body was a blazing, seething mass of pleasure. Again and again she felt her pussy contract, flooding her hand, her discarded clothes, and the floor with the evidence of her orgasm

Completely satiated, she let the Mega-Rod fall out of her. Every inch that exited made her coo with simple pleasure. When her trembling and fluttering had ceased, she fought away the orgasmic drowsiness that threatened to claim her. Nervously her hands fell away from her body, trying to prop herself up, but for a few seconds she was too stunned to move.

_By the Source Wall!_ she thought, _I never knew it could be like that._

She got to her feet and chanced a look in the mirror. Her entire body was dripping with her own fluids. Where her ejaculate hadn't wettened, her sweat had. Her breasts still heaved and her hair was so tousled it would be impossible to imprison under her helmet again. She looked like she had just fought a war… and won.

"You pass," Sexa said numbly as the lights came on. "Who were you thinking of when you came?"

The lie came easily. "Darkseid, of course." Barda turned to look at her audience, to tell them what she felt of them, but the words died in her throat. She hadn't known he was in the audience.

"You'll do," Darkseid said.

* * *

Barda rolled her armor-clothing against the washboard and squeezed it through the pinch roller compulsively. She wasn't naked… Darkseid had given her a skimpy red bikini of sorts to befit her new station, but thankfully they had let her keep the armor. It had been tailored to her specifications and, besides, was stained with ejaculate. Barda washed it over and over again, trying to get the smell out. It was better than thinking of her future. Of what would happen to her when she graduated into Darkseid's clutches. 

Scott gravitated to her. He didn't say anything, just wrestled a few well-washed articles of clothing away from her to hang on the clothesline. She didn't tell him. She didn't ever want to hurt him like that.

Finally, there were no more clothes left to watch. Scott looked at Barda, refraining from commenting on the harem outfit. She looked back at him. Kissed him hard on the lips, her hands wrapped around his back, his petting her hair soothingly, passionately, lovingly.

"I was thinking of you," she said after a long moment, as a foul-smelling breeze kicked up the drying clothes.

Scott smiled. "Of course you were, Barda, after our _first_ kiss."

Barda smiled despite it all, not caring who saw. "Call me _Xihet_. Once in a great while."

Author's note: This chapter was bowdlerized in the interest of preserving the plot and characterization while excising some of the more prurient material. Hopefully the editing didn't leave it too choppy, but if anyone's interested in the uncensored version, just ask.


	6. Paradise

For the first time in his life, Scott Free didn't know what to do.

From the day he first woke up to Apokolips, he had been consumed with a desire as strong as it was inexplicable: Escape. His life was measured in distance. Out his room, out the orphanage, out his section, but off the planet… never, never off the planet. On the other end of the sun orbited another world, a better world, the world of New Genesis. Locked in eternal reflection with its sister planet. Scott couldn't see it for the hellish red rays of the sun, but he felt a curious affinity for it. It called to him in pleasant song, like a mother's nursery singing that lulled him to sleep after he closed his eyes.

That distant home had shrunk to nothingness in his mind. Its ethereal promise was like a candle to the sun when compared to Barda.

He loved her.

He hated himself for loving her.

Scott was an escape artist. Not a rescuer, not a savior, not a hero. How could he save anyone? There was no room for friends on Apokolips, no room for family in Granny Goodness' Orphanage. There was only room for strength.

And loving Barda had taught Scott that he valued strength as much as his hellish home. His ruthlessness was different, but of the same shade. The things that truly separated New Genesis from Apokolips were absent in him. Although beauty was something to escape towards, he had never appreciated it except in Barda's eyes. Although friendship was something he admired over Apokolips' competition, he had let no one truly know him except Barda. And although he longed for love far more than he enjoyed hating his captors…

There was only one solution.

For Barda, he would become Apokolips' son. 

* * *

The cities of Apokolips were, by chaotic turn, squat pits and skyscrapers which towered claustrophobically. The only tower which truly soared was the keep of Darkseid's palace. Its roof was high enough to give a view worthy of a god. A pity, Barda mused, that it was wasted on a god such as Darkseid.

He was even more imposing in person. His fingers were clods of stone, hewn into blunt instruments. His face, a façade that had been weathered by every millennia of his eternal life. His body, a mountain range stuffed into the form of a man and lit with the core of a planet. Although his touch was cold, she could feel his feverish warmth through the air. It was muggy instead of comforting, making her break out in an unpleasant sweat.

"I can smell life on you," he said in his voice that was mixed from granite. "Free thought and notions I never approved. They grow within your mind like viruses propagating through healthy cells."

"Then choose someone else," Barda shot back. She was not openly defiant, her voice did not raise above a monotone, but it took every ounce of courage she had.

"When a son becomes diseased, does the father cast him out? No. He provides medicine and pulls the child to his breast, nourishing him back to health. So it is with Darkseid and his people."

Barda sniffled and quickly took a drink of wine to cover it up. The food was prepared of ingredients culled from Apokolips' greatest conquests, and cooked by the greatest chefs to breath slave air. Barda would trade it all away to be back eating burnt rat and drinking filthy water with Scott in a fire-pit.

"Does your heart break?" Darkseid rumbled in frightful sympathy.

"Yes."

Darkseid's right hand closed into a fist with a sound like boulders grinding together. "Imagine a world without heartache. A universe of perfect strength and discipline, where not a moment of weakness is experienced. That is worth any cost. Paradise justifies its own means." His eyes were twin embers in his cracked obsidian face. "Paradise justifies me."

"You call this paradise?" Barda demanded with an arm sweeping over the vista. "This is hell."

"It is impure," Darkseid argued. "Corrupted by scions of free thought and beauty. Such as you and the mortal Scott Free. When the rest of the universe falls into lockstep with anti-life, such unpleasantness will not be necessary."

"Scott?" Barda asked, panicking. _Not him, too!_

"He is not like you and I. He is not from Apokolips." Darkseid's lips curled with disdain. "He was whelped on New Genesis. That is why he is weak. I tolerate his existence only because of the use he might one day serve."

Barda slumped down in her seat. She felt utterly defeated and wished, more than anything, that when she had said goodbye to Scott, she had meant it. "If this were paradise, it would have room for Scott."

"Do you think me so cold as to enjoy the violence here? I abhor it, as I have ever since I left New Genesis. But it is necessary. The strongest steel comes from the hottest flame." He swept the table out from between them with one off-hand gesture. "And Apokolips burns so very hot…"

His kiss was forceful enough to please… 

* * *

Scott always was lax about keeping his head shaven, letting a fine stubble turn his cranium all… fuzzy. His hair grew out so fast and unruly that Granny's men tired of shaving him. Besides, he was able to collect so many escape tools while he was being shorn. A pair of good scissors were invaluable.

He wetted his head with murky brown water, already hating the way it darkened his skin, and drew the razor over his scalp. 

* * *

Darkseid's kiss was forceful enough to please, but the heat burned her tongue like hot soup and he couldn't match the simple emotion that swelled in her breast at Scott's touch, not with a thousand such caresses. She marshaled all her strength and shoved him back.

"YOU DARE…"

Barda spat out rock chips. "You dare! All your talk of anti-life and discipline, yet you can't even control your own lust."

The smoke issuing from Darkseid's shadowed eyes cooled from smoggy black to white, dwindling down to tiny wisps. His eyes burned down to blood-red once more.

"Darkseid… apologizes for his action. It was hasty and shall not happen again. However…" He cupped her chin between two monolithic fingers. "By the end of the week, you shall be my servant in all things. And though you scoff now, in time you will live for the slightest hint of affection from me. And when that time comes, I shall find a new whore. The last one lasted two hundred years before she worshipped at my feet. I doubt you will prove as spirited." 

* * *

"You win," Scott told Granny Goodness.

Her office was decorated in Early Martinet, portraits of prize students hanging from the walls. Their broken faces reflected Scott's like a thousand prisms.

"I win what?" Granny asked innocently from behind her obelisk of a desk.

"Call it off. Reassign Barda to the Furies. Take her out of the Pleasure Corps. I'll give you whatever you want."

"Dear boy," Granny folded her hands together, "this is what I want. You, a good boy, finally ready to behave. I see no reason to remove Barda from the Pleasure Corps. Even if I did, Darkseid's taken a liking to her. But her fate does give me leverage over you. How foolish of you to reveal that to me. If you misbehave, I'll have her service an entire battalion of Parademons. But if you're a good little boy, I'll give her the honor of licking the great Darkseid's boots clean."

Scott leaned forward, trembling hands resting on the desk. His arms twitched. Sweat dripped down over his eyelids.

"For twenty years, there have been lines I haven't crossed. Because I knew that if I went too far, I'd be in real trouble. I cared what happened to me. But you know what, Granny?"

"What, good little boy?"

Scott's smile was Apokolips turned against itself. "I don't care anymore."

He threw himself across the desk, arms outstretched for Granny's throat. It took minutes for the Parademons to drag Scott off of her, but every second he had his hands wringing Granny's neck was paradise. 

* * *

Somehow, the sound of the cell doors clanging shut seemed to resound more portentously than before. As if the metal weighted more just for him. It might at that. Apokolips was funny like that.

"You sit here and think about what you've done," Granny said, red welts standing up bright as sparks from her neck. "You're a lost cause, Scott Free. The Furies will terminate you in the morning."

Scott's hands clenched around the bars like they were her throat. "I'll live long enough to see you dead. That's a promise."

Granny cackled. "The only man whose word matters here is Darkseid's." She laughed all the way out of the cell block.

Scott observed his surroundings. Four by four cell, just enough room to turn around. When he got tired, he would sleep sitting down with his back against the wall. A manhole in the floor for when he had to relieve himself. Probably a bottleneck; no way he would get out through there. He reached around the bars and felt out the lock. It gave him a little electric buzz. Son of a bitch!

"You've really stepped in it this time," Himon said as he stepped out of the shadows. Scott didn't ask how he'd gotten into the otherwise abandoned block. It was Himon.

"Always wanted to see the inside of Darkseid's personal torture chamber before I died." This was merely Granny's dungeon. "Guess dreams don't come true."

"Not here." Himon leaned against the wall opposite Scott's cell. "What's your plan?"

"They won't execute me here. I'll make a break for it during transfer."

"Not much margin for error."

"Just makes it more impressive."

"You know you never would've gotten into this mess if you weren't on Apokolips."

Scott blinked in surprise. "Yeah, that goes without saying."

"And yet you're here."

"Not by choice."

Himon tried the lock. His first tool failed. Brow furrowed, he tried a second and a third from his belt. An alarm sounded. Himon stepped back, spotlighting in flashing red lights. "Scott, I taught you everything I knew about escape and a few things I didn't. But the reason you could never escape Apokolips is that you weren't ready to leave it behind. Hell is home. But now, you've learned the most important lesson I could never teach you."

Scott sagged against the bars. "Escape is pointless… unless you're escaping _to_ something."

"Good luck, Scott." Himon was phasing out of view. "From here on out, you're on your own."

"I'm used to it," Scott said as the alarm was turned off. Scott looked to his savior's face.

"We need to talk," Barda said.


	7. Nowhere To Run

Barda was wearing the red bikini, the one that left more to the eyes than it did the imagination, but Scott couldn't bear the sight of it when he knew what it meant for Barda. Still, looking at her made things seem… not that bad. Funny how a Fury seemed to do that for him.

"Come to say goodbye?" he asked with just a hint of humor.

"I thought you got out of jail."

"I punched Granny Goodness. In the face. You're smiling."

"I'm glad."

"I'm glad you're glad." Scott rested his face between the bars. "So, how are your classes?"

"Boring. Mostly just knowing when to fight back and when to submit, treating wounds, covering up bruises with make-up. You'd think if they liked inflicting pain so much, they could bear to look at the aftermath." She stopped and bit the inside of her cheek, so hard Scott was afraid she'd draw blood. "We've never going to see each other again. I hate that we're never going to see each other again."

Scott reached through the bars, coming up just short of her body. He kept his hand out as if he could push his life into hers. "We'll see each other again. I'll find you. There's not the prison built that could keep me from you."

"Or the war that could keep us apart." Barda took his hand, squeezed it, surprisingly gentle. "But it's not just… it's not just being apart. You were right about Darkseid. You were right about everything. Even me."

"If I was right about you, it's because you made yourself that way."

Her thumb traced the broken lines of his finger bones, feeling out the old fractures. "You think you can protect me, but I know they're going to execute you."

Scott sighed. "You've got enough to worry about without me. I'll be fine. I always am."

Barda pressed a button on her belt and her full armor sprung into existence over her.

"They're really going to execute you?"

"Yeah."

"No. They're not."

Her hands bit into the bars and molybdenum steel instantly buckled. Scott took a step back. Barda rattled the bars, rocking them back and forth. Plaster chipped and rained from the ceiling. Scott took another step back. The bars screamed as they were ripped from their place. Scott would never forget the sound they made as Barda dropped them to the floor.

"We're leaving," Barda said.

She led him by the hand through a half-dozen staircases, always going down, at one point clotheslining a Parademon they passed. Scott had to look back to see if its head was still attached.

Barely.

"Barda, not that I don't trust you, but—"

"Left!"

"You sure you know where you're going?"

"Want me to stop and ask for directions?" Barda asked him. She led him down another corridor. "I looked up the blueprints to this place before I came here."

"How'd you swing _that_?"

"No one wants to say no to Darkseid's newest paramour."

Scott swallowed.

"He hasn't touched me," Barda said resolutely. "And he never will."

_Thank the Source._

They reached the lowest sub-level and Scott instantly started scanning for a secret passage, a tell-tale scent of fresh air from nowhere or a cobweb startling in the breeze. Above, Scott could hear the dog cavalry closing in. He had no preparation for Barda picking him up. One arm went under his shoulder blades, the other supported his knees.

"Uhh, Barda?"

"Hang on," Barda said, and Scott diligently wrapped his arms around her neck.

She stomped on the floor. It gave way. They dropped. Ten feet, twenty feet, a hundred.

Landed, Barda on her splayed feet like a cat. Scott felt the thump right through her body. She straightened, then set him down on his feet. Scott wobbled for a moment, holding onto a wall for support. It was grimy under his hand.

"You okay?" Barda asked.

Scott nodded briskly.

They ran. Barda snapped some support pillars with her Mega-Rod, causing the room to cave in behind them. That would slow down any pursuit.

"You thought this up all by yourself?" Scott said.

"I got an A in Tactics."

"Oh yeah," Scott remembered.

Curiously, Scott felt no exhaustion as he ran. Barda easily outpaced him, but hung back so he could keep up, her cape waving at him like a red flag to a bull. His lungs billowed, his legs pistoned, but the energy of escape stayed with him. Maybe it was having something to run to, even if he didn't know quite what it was.

The pent-up exertion hit him like a jackhammer. It felt as if his heart had exploded. His legs cramped and he actually sank to his side, gasping for air. Instantly Barda was next to him, shoving the neck of a bottle into his mouth. He drank greedily. Clean water, the prerogative of the Furies. It was the sweetest thing he'd ever tasted. She tried to help him up to his feet, but his legs wouldn't comply. Her face was unreadable in the faint light that penetrated down to this depth through mirror-lichen and Fire-Pit bursts, but Scott had an impression of it softening. Gathering up her long legs, she sat down next to him.

"We'll rest here," Barda said.

Scott nodded and felt like vomiting. He drank some more.

"What is this place?" he said, drops of water running down his chin.

"The catacombs. They used to bury the dead down here, to wait for the Source to claim them. That stopped with Steppenwolf's death. Darkseid said wasting bodies was inefficient. That was right after he started the corpse reclamation program."

Scott nodded. "There must be thousands of side-passages. It'll take months for them to check them all. And the sewage will make our scents impossible to track."

"I did my homework," Barda said. "I can get you as far as the spaceport, from there on you're…"

"On my own?" Scott asked, his voice fragile.

Barda nodded, up and down, two motions.

"You could come with me."

Barda said nothing except "Yes, I could," which was a form of nothing.

Scott ruffled around in his pockets, finally coming up with a small scalpel-like instrument matted in lint. He wiped it off on his knee. "Here," he said, offering it to her. "I want you to have this. It's my lucky lockpick."

"Your lucky lockpick," Barda said tonelessly.

He pressed it into her hand, wrapped her fingers around it. "So you have something to remember me when I'm…"

Barda stared at him. "You're not… I mean…"

"It can unlock anything," Scott said quickly. "You barely have to wiggle it. It's like the thing's got a mind of its own."

Barda looked down. "I have nothing to give you…"

"Nothing is required."

She unholstered her Mega-Rod and held it out to him. "Here."

"I can't take this."

"I'm not giving it to you. You wouldn't know what to do with it. I'm pledging it to you. It's yours. So am I. I give you myself. Everything that is left of me, everything promised to Darkseid, everything I am, everything I ever will be, anything I become… I'm yours."

Scott was frozen for a moment. "…Thanks."

He had long since caught his breath. Barda sat up.

"Ready to move out?"

"Not yet."

His fingers were wrapped around her arms and she glanced at them, then down into his eyes. Waiting for him to make the next move. He pulled her to him, more insistently when she didn't resist. They laid down next to each other, on their sides. He breathed in, breathed out, keeping his eyes on her as his chest hollowed. With nothing left to do, he kissed her.

Scott felt her arms tightening around him, a gloved hand brushing over his shorn scalp. He broke away and grabbed Barda's hand at the wrist, stripping off the glove and kissing her scarred knuckles. Her nails were cut short, her palm a web of lines. He kissed them, moved down to the pulse of her wrist and kissed it as he loosened her bracer. It unclasped like a lock and he put it aside, easily finding the loose on her sleeve. It unzipped up to her shoulder and he saw the rigid musculature of her arm revealed under her chainmail. With a little probing through the armhole of her tunic, he found the shoulder strap of the vest underneath and pulled it down to her bare bicep.

She rolled over, pinning him to the ground for a moment, kneeling on either side of his waist. The shoulder strap she undid with a small gesture, letting its broken halves sag under her armpit.

"Here," she said, showing him where the chin-strap of her helmet met the collar of her uniform.

His nimble fingers easily unhooked it and she tugged the helmet off, letting her hair dangle down towards him. The helmet cratered to the floor next to them, instantly forgotten. Beneath the headdress, her hair was done up in a single warrior braid. Barda kissed him so hard he thought the back of his head would be ground through the floor. He felt through her hair, ripping out each hair tie he found until he felt the back of her neck and tried to cradle it. The hard, cold metal of her collar stopped him. Barda reached back and guided his fingers to the lock.

"Free me," Barda said softly, practically a purr.

Her loosened hair, thick and lustrous, fell over the back of his hands as he worked the lock. It was extremely simple, requiring no more than bare thumb and forefinger before it clicked open. Gently, Scott took off the collar and set it aside. The nape of her neck was paler than the surrounding skin, the jugular vein and throat protected from decapitating attacks. He grabbed her by the shoulders, one supple skin and one chafing armor, and buried himself in the valley of her neck. Thoughtlessly, he rolled on top of her, his knee parting her legs.

His hands brushed over the lapel of her armor and tried to rip through it, but Barda didn't even notice his efforts until she heard a strained grunt of effort. With a small smile, she joined her hands over his and ripped the outer layer of clothing open. The tight tanktop underneath, half-undone, did little to contain her heaving breasts, or to conceal the definition of her abs. Scott's lips ran over her clavicle, finding a small bruise that he stimulated with his tongue. Her groan was music.

Wait. Scott had always heard Barda was too good for anything to even touch her. "Who…?"

"Darkseid."

Barda demonstrated, pointing a finger in Scott's chest. Such a small gesture to leave such a mark. Scott shuddered at the thought of Barda in such power… then shuddered again as her finger moved lower, scraping over his stomach and tugging at the waistband of his pants.

"I want to touch you too," Barda said in a low voice.

Her hand disappeared into the crotch of his hands, Scott groaning as she gripped him like a weapon. In pain, too hard, then softer, moving up and down with gentle, flowing strokes.

With her other hand, she ripped his shirt clean off. Lockpicks, homemade explosives, and a few other tricks rained down from the garment, tinkling off Scott's back. He kissed her again, forcing his body to stay loose and limber despite the handjob she was giving him and the skill she was gaining with each second. Her lips were ruby-red, dry until she wetted them with her tongue. Scott fought his growing arousal down, brushed her chainmail off her armored shoulder. The shoulder strap of her vest followed.

Scott's hands lingered on her shoulders, drawing strength from her just go keep from falling flat on his face. He could feel a bullet of precum working its way over his purpling cockhead. Barda obligingly rolled him over and he grunted a little as she forced him down on his back. Her breasts swayed over his way and he nipped at them before she pressed him down again, smiling, a firm hand over his heart. Her other hand slipped over his cock, spreading his precum on her palm like warm butter. The slick fist twisted around his cock.

"You're…" Scott gulped. "Pretty good at this."

"It's very intuitive," Barda said, still smiling (_smiling!_). "I'm trained to read my opponents." She sent her jacking hand down all the way to his balls. "And my allies."

Scott wrapped his hands around the muscular arm that was holding him down, massaging up and down the smooth forearm. "You do this for all your allies?"

"I don't _have_ any other allies."

She continued milking his nine inches with short and brisk pumps, every drop of precum another victory. Scott strained, every muscle tensing and relaxing in a eroticized sequence, his back actually arching off the ground and into her touch. She let up the pressure on the hand that was over his heart, keeping it just light enough to feel the thumping heartbeat rocking against his rib cage. Then his back straightened, relaxed, and his hips rose into a slower, more languid stroking. Barda moved lower, the hand on his chest a forgotten memory, and Scott felt something velvety and warm encompass his dick.

"Don't—" Scott said half-heartedly. He dragged at her hair until she pulled away from his manhood, lips glazed.

Her swallow seemed to echo through the chamber. "Did I do something wrong?" It was a cadet asking for correction and a girl, a hurt girl.

"No. It's just…" He took her hands and pulled her up to him, relaxing now that the throbbing in his testicles was stopped. "I don't want to go before you. Or without you."

"I pledged myself to you. I want to please you."

He hugged her, whispering in her ear "And do you think I don't want to do the same for you?"

The last few traces of his uncertainty evaporated as Scott stripped her armor with careful ministrations, setting it down all around them in a rough circle. She was naked from the waist down, reclining on her back in artful repose. Her cape shielded her from the hard, cold floor. Scott kissed over her ribs, biting his fingers into her belt. He tugged downward, exposing the powerful contour of her hipbone, then her broad hips, and finally her soft thighs. The flesh goosepimpled at his touch.

"I'm trembling," Barda said, shocked at her own vulnerability. Shocked more at admitting it instead of controlling it.

"Me too," Scott said, rubbing her thigh comfortingly. She smiled at him. He smiled back.

He looked down. Eyes widened in surprise. Barda had a small belly button. It was practically cute. He bent down to kiss it and Barda cooed delightfully. Her hands cupped his head, scissoring around his ears. Palms gently pressed downward and he followed. Scott ran his lips over the small layer of fat that blunted the hardened definition of her abs. He liked it. It softened her, made her voluptuous instead of a pure blunt instrument. His tasting moved lower until his chin brushed her close-cut pubic hair. The gentle pressure she was exerting on him stopped and he looked up to see she was squeezing her own breasts, almost unconsciously. Certainly un-_self_-consciously.

"Good idea," Scott said, moving upward.

"A in tactics," Barda said.

Her breasts were high and jutting, as proud as the rest of her, and as firm. He hadn't known why he'd expected them to be… gelatinous. They were soft, true, but the more he felt it, the more they seemed to swell. He kissed them, lips brushing over her areoles until her nipples bristled to hardness. Barda moaned a little, one hand clawing deep gouges into the stone floor, the other touching Scott's back. Not rubbing or massaging or pressing, but peppering each into her touch as the mood suited her. The smooth, gentle feel of his kisses was turning harsher as he became more passionate. He was suckling at her breast now, tongue whipping at her nipple. She petted his hair, eyes screwing inexorably closed.

Scott pulled his head up a little, playing with her nipple between his first two fingers. "Ticklish and soft." He pinched her nipple, stretching it out a little ways before releasing her breast. "If this gets out, it'll ruin your reputation."

"I'm not ticklish."

"Oh yeah?"

His fingers itched at her flat stomach, but before she could crack a treacherous smile, she had flipped over once again, throwing him on his back.

"It's been too long since I touched you," she said as her hand closed around his cock.

"Far too long," Scott agreed.

She pumped him maddeningly slowly. He was just starting to get into it when she stopped, lying down on her back next to him at what could've been mistaken for military attention, had it only been vertical.

"Inside me. Now."

Scott rolled over so he was facing her, his hand laid flat over her belly. "Are you sure? We don't have to. We could just keep kissing, if you like… I can wait."

She pushed his hand down lower, mopping it over her soft pubic hair until he was between her legs. "No more waiting. Not one more minute."

His fingers felt wetness, furnace-warmth.

"I did that?" he asked, not sure.

She leaned up to kiss him, put her head back down. "Not a single instant more."

Barda thrilled as Scott moved over her, his shadow briefly crossing his face before he kissed her again. Must've been the hundredth time. She wouldn't care if it were the millionth. He could do that forever, long as he did _more._

His arms were planted firmly to either side of her and her heightened senses, used to fear and blood and death, smelled something like the courage of her fellow Furies on him. He was sweating, had sweated, had it dried out, was sweating again. Her fingers slid over his back like fluid when she touched him, soaking up his musk. She was ready for him. She reached down for his cock, grabbed it in the darkness, helped him find and penetrate her. He sighed blissfully. She felt stronger than she ever had before. She had expected this would make her weak.

"Darkseid's eyes!"

"Don't say his name!" Scott said with surprising force. "Not here. Not now."

Scott's teeth were against her neck, cold and hard but not biting so much as raking against the tender pale skin. She wrapped her arms around him and held him close, knowing he enjoyed the way her breasts pressed against him from the jolt his cock gave. Inside her. There had been men she's fancied from a distance or who she'd stoutly rejected, from Darkseid on down, but Scott was _real_. Tactile. Barda smiled at the pun. Smiled at everything.

"What's so funny?" Scott asked. He was halfway inside her, obviously straining to keep himself under control. His magnificent body could contort into all manner of delightful shapes. It could stand up to a little battering before coming.

"You."

"Should I be offended?"

Her hands wandered over his clenched ass, forced him deeper inside her.

"That answer your question?"

"My funny little valentine," he said, so close to Barda that his breath mixed with hers.

Impossibly, Scott could feel her getting hotter and moister around his cock. It made fucking her easier; the intensely clenched muscle of her cunt was loosening with each second. Pity, it was overbearingly pleasurable, what little he could fit inside.

Scott groaned as Barda wrapped her legs around him, enjoying the reaction he made to the power of her legs. They squeezed him. Scott's eyes rolled up in his head with the effort of holding down his orgasm and Barda quite enjoying dangling him over it, keeping him uncomfortably close to the end. Did it count as torture if he liked it too?

Her arms flexed. Her grip on him tightened. She could feel his breath coming in shallow gulps, his heart pounding against his chest. Hers wasn't quite making a mile a minute, but the pace it did set was (for a Fury) out of control. Scott licked between her breasts, nibbled on her engorged nipples, kissed her. The kiss hard, forceful, good. She was tasting him. She needed more. Of him, of life… everything.

Scott wasn't surprised when Barda barreled over him, straddling him once more. By now they had rolled all the way across the room they were in. One more switch and they could be fucking against the wall.

Not a bad idea, although Scott much preferred the way he could study every curve of Barda's body in the light, erected above him like a temple to femininity.

"I'm beautiful," she said, sliding down lower over his shaft. Encompassing him. Devouring him. "I know. You taught me that."

She bent over him, hips mercilessly pounding herself against him, arms holding her over him in prolonged repose. "You showed me that."

She slid along, elongating over him, hips driving, pulsing, pumping. Scott felt acutely stimulated, on a level of existence that could only be reached by extremes of pain or pleasure. He had visited it before, whenever Desaad paid him a visit… then, he couldn't have imagined not wanting to leave. Her nipples, hard as the diamonds, hard as the rest of her, cut over his flesh.

"You showed me how beautiful I was," she said, hips speeding up, sucking him in and expelling him back out. "_And I love you for it._"

His eyes, screwed shut with ecstasy, shot wide open to see Barda grinning down at him. Sincere. Not a dream or a hoax or his imagination. He smiled. It was a goofy smile.

"My funny little valentine," she said, riding him hard, pushing his body past its limits until finally, inevitably, together…

The undulation seemed to begin in Barda's body and flow down into Scott's. She sighed, tensed, relaxed, all at once. Her eyelids fluttered as something positively immense filtered through her body. She had to put a hand to the floor to support herself. She slid off Scott, hitting the floor next to him with a resounding thud. It was the only punctuation their release had.

"_Yes_," Barda breathed, her voice soft and quiet, not a harsh whisper but something small inside her coming to life.

Scott kissed her forehead as he rolled on top of her one last time. Her body was firm and hard and muscular, but it was the best mattress he could ask for.

With one outstretched hand he grabbed her cape and pulled it over, wrapping it over both of them like a bedsheet. Barda looked tired, soft, sated… and adorable. Scott instinctively recognized her torpor as stemming from the recent orgasm. It felt good to have made her feel like that. It made him feel… heroic, in a way.

He didn't know what to say, so he said the truth: "For the first time in my life, I don't want to escape."

Barda recognized the importance of that like no one else save Scott Free himself could. She acknowledged it with a smile that had nothing to do with bared teeth.

"Good. I wouldn't let you go."

"I noticed you weren't…" Scott began, with a bit of sadness, then faltered.

"A virgin?"

"Yeah." He winced. "Did someone… hurt you?"

"No." She held up her Mega-Rod. "If it's any consolation, I was thinking of you."

They laughed. Long and hard, the last droplets of tension evaporating from their exhausted bodies.

"Ah geez, we make jokes about that kind of thing," Scott said, resting his head on Barda's cleavage.

"Really? I've never heard one. Tell me a joke."

Scott reared up to look into her eyes. "Okay. Promise not to be offended."

"I'm a Female Fury of Apokolips with multiple battles to my name. I'm not going to get bent out of shape over a _joke_."

"Alright then. What do you call a Female Fury with two Mega-Rods?"

"Right behind you."

The voice was a dry rasp, something ancient dragged over anything that was ever good or decent. Scott turned, not fast enough, and a Mega-Rod slapped across his face. He went down, thrown off Barda. Blood already pouring down his scalp.

"You—!" Barda started, the rest dissolving into a roar of rage, but Parademons were piling on her. Naked, exhausted, unprepared, the sound of bones breaking came from the dogpile.

Not hers, though.

Scott rolled up to his feet, shaking his head to clear it of his double-vision. One Granny Goodness was enough. He was on his knees, looking at Granny. She leered at him.

"Have you naughty kiddies been playing doctor?"

The casual reference to their lovemaking enraged him almost as much as the assault on Barda. From the way she carried herself, she was expecting the blow to the head to take him out of play. Scott grinned for a half-second at her naiveté before throwing his punch. It dug into her gut, doubling her over into a fit of hacking coughs. That felt good. The whip that wrapped around his neck and jerked him down to his back didn't. Lashina gave it a crack, just in case he didn't get the message.

A Parademon flew overhead, body broken in two. Barda had found her Mega-Rod. It was probably the head wound, but Scott found that immensely funny. He laughed.

Stompa's heel pressed into his crotch, the cleats causing him no small amount of discomfort.

"Barda!" Stompa barked. "Stand down! Before I make your stead into a gelding."

Mad Harriet cackled at the wordplay. Scott realized they were watching, one of them, or heard, or _something_. Fucking perverts. Fucking Apokolips perverts. The blood rushed to his head. And out of it.

"Don't listen to her!" he shouted, ignoring the blood pooling behind his head and the boot pressing down into his groin. "You run! Hear me, Barda? Run!"

The Parademons hung back, licking their wound, watching as Barda surveyed the situation. She looked beautiful. Naked save for her Mega-Rod, skin reddened with her bloodlust. Scott could be content with that being the last time he ever saw her.

"What would I run to?" she asked him, sincere as the sunset.

The Mega-Rod cracked the floor where she dropped it. Barda's knees followed suit. 


	8. You Never Close Your Eyes

Their clothes were in tatters, due both to their lovemaking and the abuse heaped on them during the forced march. They had drudged through sewage, had bricks and broken bottles thrown at them by the Lowlies, been whipped by Lashina to greater speeds, and heard a seemingly endless rant on the glories of Darkseid from parade leader Granny Goodness. By now they'd long since tuned it out, but…

But there was a dreary déjà vu about being recaptured, like Tuesday morning going to a job you hated. But his time with Barda gave it immediacy, like going back to that job on Monday.

"They sent out the A-list for us," Barda said. Her voice wasn't quite as drained as Scott imagined his would be, but it was still hoarse. She looked smaller somehow. "You have to be a little impressed."

Scott was quiet. His muscle were slack.

"Scott? Don't shut me out."

"We were so close," Scott said softly. His lips were dry and chapped and parted like doors that needed their hinges oiled. "This time, I thought…"

"They're not going to kill you. If they were, they'd have done it already."

Scott half-heartedly tested the strength of his manacles. "I can't do this anymore. I really can't."

Barda did her best to comfort him despite her chains. All she was able to do was press herself into his side and tug on his manacles until she was holding his hand. "You don't have to. I'll be brave for both of us."

"Can you hope for both of us?"

By the time they reached Darkseid's palace, the only thing holding Scott up was Barda. Desaad was waiting for them, a four-legged torture apparatus walking behind him on a leash.

"Look at it, Scott," Barda whispered to him. "It had a weakness. Find it." Her hand was rubbing at his hipbone. If sex would motivate him, if _anything_ would bring him back to life, she'd do it. "Come back to me."

Barda was roughly jerked away from Scott, leaving the escape artist to fall on his face. He tried to get to his feet, but a boot from Stompa kept him drowning in the puddled mud. The dog-torture bit into the scruff of his neck and held him up, blood dripping off his throat to sully the brown water.

"Scott Free, the prodigal son." Desaad chuckled at a private joke. "I see you've met my latest experiment. I've always held that the bond between torturer and victim is a deeply spiritual one. This takes out all the guesswork and causes pain to the soul itself. Bet you never knew the soul was a nerve."

"Just kill me, you sadistic maniac," Scott muttered. "Just get it over with."

"Over with? Oh, no. You're going to make good on all the bad you did." Desaad knelt down and wrenched Scott's hair, painfully raking his neck along the teeth holding him in place. "I'm going to break you. And that moment, that moment when you realize the will of Darkseid is incontestable… I'm going to broadcast that on every channel. I'm going to make an example of you." He stood. "After that, I suppose you can work as a laborer of some sort. Maybe join the Lowlies in Armaghetto. It'll be a hard life, but it is life. Anti-life, rather."

Barda snorted.

"And as for _you_," Desaad started in on her. "Scott's fate is set in stone, make no mistake in that. But you can add a detail or two. Submit to Darkseid, wholly, willingly, and Scott will be spared. Don't, and he'll be destroyed."

Barda scowled. "You think I care?"

Desaad kicked Scott in the face. The bright, clear sound of his face snapping up the blow…

"No!"

"Never bluff when you've got nothing to lose," Desaad said. "It's tacky. Now let's get started, shall we?"

* * *

Darkseid's place did not truly soar. Although its height was impressive, it was also as paranoid and unimaginative as the rest of Darkseid's regime. Everything above-ground was a massive defense grid, with the true palace underground. The dungeons were at the deepest part of the chasm, a drop three hundred feet down that Desaad traveled by shuttle. Just for kicks, he threw Scott out when they were two stories off the ground. Scott considered getting up, but it was far easier just to stay down until the dog-torture landed over it. Each of its four limbs corresponded to one of him, and they latched on at his wrists and ankles. Soon he was drawn up under it, with additional restraints at the chest, waist, knees, and elbows.

Desaad stepped out of the shuttle. "I think you'll find that escape is quite impossible. Pain, on the other hand, is quite inevitable. Please, feel free to scream. In fact, it's encouraged!"

Scott felt something touching his mind, at first tentative and curious, then with growing first. He did his best to tune it out, screen it, but without relent he felt himself being cored by the strange sensation.

"Meet the teletorturer." Desaad was rubbing his hands together gleefully. "I've been saving him for a special occasion. It's been ages since Darkseid gave me a New God. All that's left of him now aside from screaming particles is the mother box invading your mind."

**You think I care?**

Scott jerked. "What was that?"

"I call it the father box. It's the heart of my little toy. Harder, father box. Show him what you do."

**You think I careIcareIcareIcare?**

"Stop it."

"Did you think she was bluffing?" Desaad asked. "Oh no. She got what she wanted from you and now she goes to Darkseid's harem _smiling_."

"You LIE!"

**YouthinkIcareIcareIcareicareicareicare**

"Turn it off!" Scott yelled.

"Why?" Desaad pulled a flask from his voluminous robe's sleeve and took a pull from it. "Where the mother box obscures reality with things like love and beauty, the father box reveals the truth. In fact, it makes it so you never believed those lies at all."

**youthinkicareyouthinkicareyouthinkicarey outhinkicare**

* * *

"Do you think I care the reason you submit to me?"

Barda stubbornly repeated herself. "I'll never love you."

"Good. Of all the things he's taught you, I hope you've learned that love is weakness. Take her to the bathhouse. Clean her up. Then bring her to my chambers."

* * *

Scott bit his lip until it bled. The pain overrode the queer feeling spreading over his neocortex.. .for the moment.

_Listen to me,_ he thought at the presence that was looming behind his skull. _I know of mother boxes. I know you're alive. I know you don't want to do this._

**thinkicarethinkicarethinkicare**

_Your master wouldn't have wanted this. You have to help me. You have to_

**thinkicarethinkicarethinkicarethinkicare**

* * *

Barda made no effort to resist as the ragged wet cloths were moved over her body, scrubbing off every pollution. The Parademons stayed well shy of any areas that might offend her, frightened by her flexed arms and fisted fingers, but their touch still felt like sandpaper after gentle Scott. Despite the cleanest water and purest soap on all Apokolips touching her body, she felt more dirty than before. For Scott, she could feel dirty. For Scott, she could be dirt.

* * *

Scott's head jerked upright. Across from him, Desaad was chiseling a rock-apple to pieces and crunching every one between his jagged incisors.

"I don't think I like this torture method as much as more conventional methods. Not as much screaming. No real terror. Just… describe it to me? Creeping uncertainty? That's quite boring to watch."

"Happy to disappoint you," Scott choked out.

Barda had said she didn't care about him. It wasn't true. It couldn't be true. He'd been with her, in the catacombs. She'd _shown him_ she cared.

**Did she?**

"No," Scott mumbled, horrorstruck.

The memory of his first touch to Barda's skin, her tentative response, the rising passion… it was souring, curdling, _tainting his mind!_

_Stop this! If you keep this up your functions will be damaged beyond repair! You're a mother box, not a torture device. Release me! Release me!_

The father box was cold and unsympathetic to his pleas. To reach it, he'd have to push it back into its own circuitry. Impossible.

**Didshe Didshe Didshe**

But if he didn't, Barda would be… the thought of her memory of him being obliterated under that tyrant's cruel power was unbearable.

To save Barda, Scott would have to escape his own mind.

* * *

Putting on the red bikini of the Pleasure Corps again was less painful than she thought. Scott had more her feel beautiful in it and the leering gazes of the Parademons as they dressed her would have felt no worse if she were in her more proper armor.

She faked a lunge at them, just to get the respect she was due, and they scrambled for their staff weapons. Satisfied, she let them lead her through the winding caverns of Darkseid's headquarters. The lava provided the only source of light, and it kept the palace so muggy that even the Parademons were sweating like pigs. Barda flicked a droplet off her forehead contemptuously. She would not face Darkseid as a whipped dog. Do what she must, she would be a soldier.

Each step of the winding staircase dragged at her feet and the Parademons had become overconfident enough to jab at her with their spearheads. She let them. Getting used to the pinprick pain now would make the night go smoother later on. Finally, they crossed a forcefield-bridge over a river of lava and arrived at the massive doors to Darkseid's chamber.

It began to groan open, like a mouth. The Parademons turned tail and fled, the forcefield-bridge shutting off behind them. A moat of lava. Barda arched an eyebrow. Inventive. But Scott could've beat it.

A truly cyclopean stalactite had been hollowed out to form Darkseid's bedchamber. Windows provided the only ventilation, letting in a spectacular view of lavafalls along the distant walls of the pit. They provided the only light, casting the room in a low hellish hue. It looked as if the entire place had been painted in blood. Despite herself, Barda felt slightly curious about Darkseid's furnishings. There were small tokens of… affection? from some of his senior staff. Old armor, stuffed beasts Barda recognized from propaganda films of decadent and hated New Genesis. And a portrait of a woman that took Barda's breath away. Whether by Darkseid's whim or not, it was actually painted beautifully. The woman depicted in it was achingly pretty, although as severe as any turned out by Apokolips.

The overbearing weight of Darkseid's footsteps were the first sign of his presence. Although he was no brighter than the shadows that truly furnished the room, his eyes' dim light gave form to his craggy shape. Barda turned away from the painting to regard him coolly.

"Your mother?"

"Suli," Darkseid replied, not acknowledging her jibe. "My love."

"Thought that was Tigra."

"Tigra is no more than a diversion, as you are." With surprising dexterity his fingers found the catch on his uniform. He disrobed and Barda turned away from the sight of his repulsive form. "Shall we get started?"

* * *

Scott centered himself. Himon had taught him this. A simple trance could block out pain, aid in escape, even mimic death. With a deep breath, he delivered one last mental jab to the father box and went under.

Comatose, his body sagged.

Desaad squinted. "What's this?"

* * *

Inside, Scott took stock of his headspace. He'd been thinking of the father box as invading, but what it really was, was an infection. He could see it clouding over various bits of his psyche. Desperately, he resorted his consciousness and threw everything non-essential at the father box in an attempt to distract it. Foolishness! It didn't even slow it down.

Something essential then. Barda. His love for her, his memory for her, everything. Himon had told him that the mother boxes were programmed to give unconditional love… perhaps a jolt of the same would reawaken that part of its programming. He had nothing to lose.

Balling up the thought of Barda into a spear, he stabbed at the father box. He felt it surge, trying to contain everything he was throwing at it, trying to engulf it like an amoeba feeding, but it was too much. There were barriers to prevent Scott from doing what he had to do. Mental exercises defeated them easily. They were all based around personality preconceptions and Scott's first lesson had been to mentally bend himself there.

Not a man, not a mind, no body, no eyes, no hands, no feet… Desaad had really pathetically set those blocks up. Within moments he was projecting himself into the mother box, his mind synced to its. Although he had never seen a mother box before, the damage was obvious. Portions of it had been severed, floating in mindspace like electronic jellyfish. Others had been added, leeching onto the mother box's benevolent consciousness. Scott flayed those off with sheer willpower, then used their remains to build bridges to the amputated psyches.

A long, cold night passed as he left the mother box behind and returned to his own body. It was like his skin had fallen asleep. He forced his eyes open like stubborn window blinds, finally seeing Desaad's own eyes boring into him.

"You left, Scott Free. Where did you go?"

"Just around the block."

Desaad drew a pair of razor-pliers from within the folds of his cloak. "I'm told that you're something of an escape artist. Well, we'll see how you do with your fingers cut off."

Desaad moved the pliers to Scott's index finger.

"Okay, okay! I'll talk!"

"I'm not asking any questions," Desaad said, bemused.

"I am."

The bonds holding Scott's feet in place clicked open. Desaad looked down just in time to see a foot snapping up into his chin. He somersaulted backwards, landing and spilling a tray of surgical tools to the rocky ground.

"For instance, did you know that computers never really delete information? It's just lurking around their hard drives, waiting to be restored." Scott's arms were freed and he stepped out of the dog-torture. "Thanks, mother box."

Desaad picked up a scalpel and pointed it at Scott, who advanced carelessly.

"You know, I've had it _right up to here_ with miserable little bullies like you telling me what to wear, what to eat, how to live, what to think, how to love or _not to love at all!_"

Desaad lunged for him. Scott caught his hand at the wrist, twisting the scalpel out of it. Beneath the robe, Desaad's body was pitifully frail and thin. Scott laughed victoriously and threw Desaad into one of his own chairs. Desaad was so winded by the impact that he couldn't resist as Scott quickly buckled him in.

"Remind me of the plan again. You were going to broadcast my breakdown to everyone in New Apokolips?"

"A joke!" Desaad said. He forced a laugh. "I was just playing with you! You know I would never do anything like that! I was just wanted to put a good scare into you, you know, ha-ha… c'mon, let me out of this chair, we're talk about this…"

Scott picked up a control pad attached to the chair by a long cable. "These controls are rather intuitive. Where's Barda?"

"Darkseid's chambers!"

"Where's that?"

"The stalactite. You'll never get to it! The bridge is guarded night and day!"

"Then I guess I won't take the bridge." Scott turned the chair on. Electricity flowed into Desaad's body, making him dance like a bean on a hot plate. "Desaad, I've always been a fan of your good conduct. Oh, that was lame. I'm glad no one but me was around to hear that."

The mother box pinged and ejected from the deadened dog-torture like a tape from a VCR. Scott scooped it up. He turned on the video camera, facing it towards Desaad as he left.

"I'm going to need a boomtube into that stalactite."

The mother box pinged and whooped.

"No boomtube function. Okay…" he turned to look at Desaad's shuttle, a thick battering ram of a vehicle. "Tell me, can you hotwire that?"

* * *

It wouldn't be so bad if the stone of Darkseid's hands were polished or rounded, but instead it was all sharp edges that cut her skin as he unwrapped her brassiere. Barda took an impulsive step backwards, almost hardening into a fighting stance, and Darkseid chuckled. Swallowing her revulsion, Barda thought of Scott and kissed him. The memory was hard to keep clear when it was Darkseid's mouth burning hers, his lips tearing at hers. She pulled away.

"The rest of it," he said, eyes darkened to fiery red irises. "Now."

Barda crossed her arms over her breasts. "Release Scott. Then, we'll…"

He backhanded her to the floor, so hard that lights flared blindingly behind her eyes. When her head cleared, Darkseid was standing over her. "Did you honestly believe my lust for you was so great that I would give it power over me? Give _you_ power over me? I would rather see your beauty washed clean off than cede one iota of control for it. In fact, I think I shall." His eyes bloomed brilliant waves of omega particles, lighting up the room. "And I think your love shall rot away in my dungeons until even the memory of your name has faded from him. Then, and only then, will I kill him. Feel proud, little one. You have indeed spared Scott the sting of death, only to earn him the ravages of anti-life!"

Barda crawled away, knowing there was no escape from the omega beams charging behind her. Her jaw felt like it would fall off and lights were still flashing across her sight. She smiled to himself.

"You're a fool if you think your prisons can hold Scott Free," she laughed over her shoulder.

"Is that who you put your faith in? Scott Free? A New Genesis whelp?"

Barda turned over, spat out blood. "Scott is as much of Apokolips as you or I."

"He didn't tell you. Scott was born on New Genesis. He comes from a race of spoiled, lazy, decadent slugs who have never known discipline or hardship in their entire lives. He is the accursed spawn of the Highfather himself."

Barda ripped a tile from the floor and threw it at Darkseid. It hit the Darkseid on the right, which apparently wasn't the real one. "You're lying to me. Scott could never have come from those swine! He's a good man!"

"Scott has never given anything to Apokolips. He has never fought for her, never worked for her, never thought of anyone but his own selfish interests."

"He thought of me," Barda said quietly.

"He used you. To sate his own lusts. And now he's abandoned you."

That's when the shuttle crashed through the wall. Darkseid turned, prematurely emitting a half-formed Omega Beam that went wild when the shuttle rammed into him. Inside, Scott jammed on the brakes. The shuttle's momentum still carried him and Darkseid through the wall, out over the vast drop of the pit. Darkseid clung to the hood of the starship, the hellfire of the Omega Beam fading from his eyes.

Through the windshield, Scott stared at him. He held up a finger. Pressed a button.

Windshield wipers slapped Darkseid's grip away and he pitched into the abyss, emitting not a sound.

"I just knocked Darkseid buck-naked out of his own room and dropped him a couple hundred feet," Scott said to himself. "Been meaning to do that before I turned thirty."

Although the long fall would slow Darkseid down, the stop at the end wouldn't. Scott had about that long to back the shuttle into the stalactite, pick up Barda, and get out. He felt reborn. Revitalized. He had a mission, he knew what he had to do, and he was doing it.

"Barda, come on!" He threw open the door. "We've overstayed our welcome here by at least a decade."

Barda looked at him. Even as she felt herself literally drawn to him, walking the distance between them, she searched him for a trace of New Genesis. She'd never seen anyone from New Genesis from before. His hair was growing back rapidly, already a coarse stubble that she ran her hand over she reached him. Scott was dead-set on the bruise that covered her left jawline and cheek where Darkseid had struck her. Gingerly he cupped her chin, tilting her face to better see it in the light. Was there something unusually gentle in his touch, something that wasn't just Scott but instead…

"Are you okay?" Scott asked, his voice pregnant with meaning as he wrapped a jacket over her, covering her bare breasts.

"Yes, I'm fine." She took his hand and surreptitiously stroked his fingers, as if she could divine their origin from the feel of them. They were dexterous instead of blunt, nimbler than ever her own slender fingers. Even the whorls seemed a bit too circular, a bit too soft. "How'd you escape?"

"I made a new friend." He pointed to a box sitting on the dashboard. "Mother box, Barda. Barda, mother box."

"You have a mother box?" Barda hissed. The mother box whined in alarm as well.

"Found one, you sure you're okay?"

Barda nodded.

Something thudded against the doors, jolting them. Darkseid's paranoia had proved to be his undoing. In his absence, not even the Parademons he'd ordered there could get in. Stupid and fearful, it would take time for the Parademons to realize they could just circle around and attack the stalactite from without. Scott wasn't going to give them that time. He closed the doors, fired up the engines.

"Alright then. I've been planning this escape since I was ten. The defense grid is focused on the fore of Apokolips. We slip around back, we can lose ourselves in the engines and skip clear in the ion trail."

"You're going to run over the surface?" Barda had done a tour in a gun crew. There was one stationed every square mile. "We'll be shot down in moments!"

"We're not going around Apokolips." Scott pointed the shuttle at the mouth of a cave from which a particularly large lavafall was flowing. "We're going through it."

He hit the gas. The shuttle took off, the sound of its engines roaring not quite covering up the noise of the doors being broken down. Parademons spilled out after them, clawing over each other in an attempt to be first to kill the intruders. Those who got too close fried themselves on the shuttle's exhaust. The mother box pinged nervously.

"Easy, mother box." Scott kept a steady hand on the yoke. "Barda, brought you a present."

He held out her Mega-Rod.

Barda took it and thought she could almost forgive him for being a New Genesis spy… and not telling her.

* * *

They scraped through the mouth of the cave, nearly losing a wingtip or two on the way. It widened instantly, but not enough for the Parademons. Barda and Scott could hear their high-pitched wails as some of the unlucky soldiers scalded themselves with lava in their rush to crowd through the entrance.

"Where will we go?" Barda asked, buckling herself in. "There's not a world for a hundred light-years that doesn't pay allegiance to Darkseid."

"We could always go to New Genesis. They'll give us sanctuary… I hope."

"Those lazy, slovenly, contemptuous…"

"If Darkseid hates them, they can't be all that bad," Scott argued. "Don't you trust me?"

Barda didn't answer.

"Is there anything you haven't told me? Anything at all, about yourself?"

"Nothing important."

The tunnel curved to the left and Scott followed, the Parademons braying behind them.

Barda swallowed down her emotion. If Scott didn't trust her, that was fine. If he didn't feel the same way she did about him… she would survive. Adapt. Prosper, even. Just… without him.

A sound of metal on metal grinding. The ship's hull… and teeth.

"Barda, Parademons!" Scott said as a yellow fist punched through the hull.

Barda was out of her seat in an instance, hurling her Mega-Rod end over end. It took off the fist at the wrist and ricocheted back into her hand as the bleeding stump withdrew. The victim's fellow Parademons cackled and widened the hole. Barda hammered their fingers with the Mega-Rod, but mere pain couldn't slow them down. Soon, a slobbering maw as leering through the hole at Barda. She grabbed it with her free hand and twisted it as far as her wrist could go… far further than its neck could.

The Parademons howled, louder and hungrier, ripping apart their dead comrade-in-arms as soon as it was pulled out of Barda's sight. She grimaced and swatted at the next Parademon to grope for her. The beasts were pounding at the hole, trying to widen it downward, and she couldn't get a good angle to fight back.

Ahead of them, a brilliant flare of light! Scott squinted as the flames of the firepit burned bright. Mother box pinged.

"There's an access hatch at the bottom of that thing? Well, when does the flame cut out?"

The geyser of flame stopped. Scott hit the afterburners and dove the shuttle into the firepit, sending Barda flying heads over heels. She grabbed hold of the wall, fingers denting the metal, and clung tightly to it as the acceleration peeled off the Parademons on the hull.

"Scott, how long until that firepit starts up again?"

"Two minutes."

"And how deep is it?"

The bottom of the pit was a fingered circle alit with sparks.

"Don't ask, babe."

**BOOM!**

Scott turned, a second too late, as Granny Goodness slammed her Mega-Rod across his chin. He went down, helpless to do anything as Granny throttled down the engines. The shuttle came to a stop, pointed downward, and its artificial gravity hiccupped. In the front, Scott and Granny fell to the bottom of the ship, landing on the windshield. In the back, the artificial gravity kept Barda upright as she met the volley of Parademons surging out of Granny's Boomtube.

Scott looked up, expecting to see stars, instead seeing Barda standing on the "wall," cleaving through an endless stream of Parademons. He reached for her… a futile gesture anyway… and Granny rapped her Mega-Rod across his knuckles.

"Bad boy! Naughty boy! Hurt great Darkseid! _Broke your Granny's heart!_"

Scott rolled away from her, scooping up the mother box as he did so. "You don't have a heart, Granny." He fought his way to his feet, favoring his injured hand. "And soon, you won't have any blood for it to pump anyway!"

"You think you're so clever." Granny hefted her Mega-Rod. "Didn't see this one coming, did you?"

"Actually, I was counting on it."

She charged, swinging her Mega-Rod. He ducked under it, sliding across the windshield on his knees. Grabbing hold of her cape and yanking on it so that she fell backwards, her considerable bulk testing the capacity of the windshield. It began to crack and Granny froze, long enough for Scott to jab his mother box against her Mega-Rod. Quickly, the circuitry responsible for generating Boomtubes was salvaged and incorporated into the mother box.

Granny clutched at his ankle; Scott deftly stepped away and stomped on the stressed windshield. Granny whimpered as it almost gave way.

The mother box pinged.

"Damn straight," Scott said.

It short-circuited the shuttle's controls, sending sparks flying in accompaniment to Granny's wails. Then it closed the Boomtube, splitting an unfortunate Parademon in half. Barda mopped up the rest, her clothes tattered, her skin covered in Parademon blood and speckles of shattered armor. Scott shut off the artificial gravity. She dropped, landing squarely in our arms.

"This is where we get off," Scott said as he opened up another Boomtube. Below them, the firepit was charging for a new blast.

"Scott! Scott Free! You wouldn't leave your granny to die, would you?"

"Granny, remember when I told you that if you hurt Barda, I'd kill you? I'm a man of my word. Dry up and blow away, Goodness."

Scott never looked back as he carried Barda through the Boomtube. And Granny never stopped screaming until the flame of the firepit scoured the shuttle clean, leaving nothing left but bones and the echoing sound of a vile woman whose life had come to an end.

* * *

The Boomtube deposited them on the surface of Apokolips, one of the few rocky plains left unindustrialized. The desolation stretched on for miles, buffeted only by the hails of ash from whatever shrubs or pathetic greenery were burnt away by firestorms. Scott set Barda down, his back strained from lifting her, and started to program in coordinates. It was quite a serene action. The firestorm in the distance, the oppression of the desert surrounding them, it all burnt away from a few of mother box's pings. The only thing he felt was Barda's hand at his back, massaging gently. They'd done it. They'd won.

Scott opened his eyes. The first small thumps of a Boomtube being generated were quaking through the mother box.

"Kiss this place goodbye, Barda. In a few minutes, we're history."

"Why wait?" Darkseid asked.

Scott whirled on him, hands balling into fists. "Barda, get behind me!"

Barda stepped in front of him.

"Oh, right," Scott remembered. "Found some new threads, eh? They're very slimming." He smiled at his own mockery. "It's too late, Darkseid. In just a few moments, we'll be far away from this place. And we're never coming back."

"I'll not stop you," Darkseid promised. "If courage and bravery took you here, some of it was mine. Stay, warrior. Let me complete the destruction of Scott Free—so that you may live with the majesty that is the power of Darkseid!"

"Thanks, but no thanks." The mother box rattled in his hand, barely able to contain the portal it was generating. "I've had enough of your majesty. And so has Barda."

"Has she?" Molten eyes turned to Barda, shrunk her down to the size of an ant. "Does this whelp speak for you now, Barda? I thought you wanted to fight your own battles. For all your time here, haven't you grasped that there's no such thing as freedom? We all serve someone or something. Even I serve the tenets of anti-life. What will you serve, Barda? The saccharine lust of this foolish mortal as you live out a purposeless life at his side, your own wishes suborned to him?"

"It won't be like that," Scott said. "We'll be a family. A team."

"Then let her speak. Or have you nothing to say about your own fate?"

"Tell him, Barda."

Barda set her jaw. "I don't need this place. I don't need _you_."

"Yes you do. You need discipline. You need control. Do you think Scott can give it to you? Do you think you can give it to yourself? No. Only Darkseid can grant life meaning."

The Boomtube opened, shaking the earth under their feet. No one moved for it.

"Barda, come on," Scott said as he took a measly step towards the portal. "This is what we've been waiting for. The moment we've been dreaming of!"

"The moment _he's_ been dreaming of," Darkseid rumbled. "Stay. Stay and I will make you a goddess. You want to be a Fury? I'll make you their general. You wish a man? I'll give you ten, each the equal of that pitiful specimen who even now considers abandoning you."

"I would never—" Scott protested, then clenched his teeth. "Barda, please. Don't listen to him. He's evil. This whole place is evil."

Barda turned to him. Her eyes said it all. "This place… is my home."

Scott shook his head, slowly, then with growing conviction. "No. No, you can't believe that. He's tricking you! Can't you see that's what he's doing?"

The Boomtube coughed as it stayed open, the noise of it filling the land like a hammer hitting an anvil, like funeral bells.

"You can stay too," Barda said, so soft it was hard to even hear.

Scott went for the Boomtube. She grabbed his hand.

"Darkseid, tell him he can stay! We can make it right, we can make it better! Together, we can--"

"Don't touch me," Scott said, as simple as that. "I said let go!"

He jerked his hand away. It all made a terrible kind of sense, a feverish dream logic that fit together only on Apokolips. She was with Darkseid. Maybe she had been from the very beginning. Oh, she'd played him for a fool. When had he turned her? When had she started plotting against him? After this first kiss, before they made love, maybe when Desaad was torturing his memories of her away. Scott wished the torturer had finished the job. Wished he was still in that damn contraception. Anything was better than being here, now, watching Barda turn her back on him.

An anger Scott didn't even know he had was rising in him. "If you want to be with him, than be with him! But don't pretend you care about me. Just don't."

The Boomtube beckoned. He walked towards it.

"I hope you die, Scott Free!" Barda shouted after him, the arrogant New Genesis spy who'd made her think he loved her, who'd broken her heart just as he'd betrayed her home. "I hope you're buried wherever you end up!"

"And I hope you live," Scott said, not looking back lest she see the tears in her eyes. Apokolips bitch. Made him feel like a fool. For her, he would've done anything, and she'd repaid that loyalty with a knife in the back. "I hope you live forever on this hellhole."

And as Scott left, the Boomtube dwindling to an echo and a fury behind him, Darkseid's smile could not be described with sufficient horror. 


	9. Welcome

Scott hadn't realized how dirty he had felt until he got clean. Five years had taken him further and further away from Apokolips, the light from its Fire-Pits aging with each parsec. The first weeks he had spent in a feverish daze. Despite his precautions, he must've imbibed some of Apokolips' addictants. Withdrawal was a bitch.

As soon as he recovered, he was put to work. The ship that had picked him up was a cargo freighter fifty years past its prime. Scott had always been good with his hands. He helped the chief engineer patch up the decay. For three years he was a part of the crew, putting more distance between himself and Darkseid… and Barda.

Every chance he got, he sought out escape artists on their route, learning what he could. He would never be caged again. There was too much beauty in the universe to live with ugliness. Blue skies, white clouds, green plants… for starters! An endless buffet of variety was brought before him and he gorged himself. His only quibble was having no one else to appreciate it. The rest of the crew was far too blasé about not living in hell.

The crew also hid him. Occasionally an Apokolips assassin, freelance bounty hunter, or Green Lantern/Darkstar would come looking for him. Scott stayed hidden, despite the tales they brought of a war brewing between the Gods. It seemed like Scott had gotten out just in time. What did he care? It wasn't his fault. Let them all kill each other off, the Apokolips bastards and the sanctimonious New Genesis preachers who let them rot. He wasn't sure whether he wanted Barda to get hurt or not.

As to the rest of the crew, he stayed aloof. He had no frame of reference to converse with them. Women offered, he accepted, but all the exercise accomplished was reminding him of Barda. The longer he spent away from her, the more his heartache grew. Half-drunk, he wrote letters to her she would never read. They were by turn vitriolic and… emotional. Scott kept the emotional ones. Burnt the rest.

Three years in, the cargo ship reached the end of its trade route and turned back around. Scott disembarked with the feeling he wouldn't be missed. He carried some of Apokolips with him. Apokolips was creepy.

He threw his lot in with a crime syndicate, learning the tricks of the trade from professional sneak thieves and prison breakers. His choice of job took him closer to Earth with each planet he visited. Inevitably, he reached a line he wouldn't cross, refused to hurt someone. They hunted him all the way to the third planet of the Sol system, which he now journeyed to out of protection. Earth was protected. They wouldn't dare risk the ire of the superheroes by hunting him there.

Or so he thought.

* * *

Scott hit Earth, the Boomtube's concussive death-rattle behind him. His damaged Mother Box's connection to the Source was weak. He had been lucky to make it from outside the solar system. So, this was Illinois. He'd heard that one of Earth's famous escape artists resided here. If Illinois was good enough for the world-famous Mr. Miracle, it was good enough for him.

Pulling the metallic fibers of his clothing tighter, Scott looked around. He was in a forest, the wooden kind. Dark, too. He had arrived during the night-cycle. His eyes adjusting to the dark, Scott set out to find his next teacher. Twigs crunched underfoot as he made his way through the trees. He took off a glove, reached out to touch every tree he passed. The bark rasped against his palm.

"Barda, you would've loved this." It was the first time he'd said her name in five years.

He plucked a leaf from a low-hanging branch, rubbed its veined surface between his fingers.

"No thorns," he said, finishing the thought.

* * *

Jimmy Olsen was bored.

Given how cool the Cadmus Project sounded – genetically engineering the next evolution of humanity to defend against the Apocalypse (or however you spelled it) – the actual work it was doing was. So. Boring. He was Mr. Action! How was he supposed to make the tedious hours spent painstakingly resequencing DNA sound interesting?

The armed guards on duty just outside the clear-walled lab gave it an air of danger, but it was all for show. Another pork project trying to justify its inflated budget. Jimmy whirled on his swivel-chair (a sure sign of government spending… they had sprung for the swivelly, rolly chairs) to the scientist he was embedded with.

"So, why do they call it the Cadmus Project anyway?"

"You know who Cadmus zas?" Dr. Weird Accent returned.

"Nope."

"Me neither." He pronounced it naither. "I think it just zounded interesting. That's how most projects get zheir funding. No one wants to cut funding to Project X."

"What's Project X?"

"Rezearch into zea turtle migration patterns. All the good names are taken, you zee?"

"I zee."

Jimmy yawned and switched his Palm Pilot to the novel Miss Lane was making him edit. It was about an alien superhero who fell in love with a beautiful female reporter. Jimmy didn't know if the Martian Manhunter was really that close to Cat Grant. He made a note to tell Lois that.

Dr. Weird Accent was examining a slide under a very elaborate-looking microscope. "Ze genomes are multiplizing nizely. You want a zook?"

"No thanks. I'm cool."

"I could turn the AC up."

**VVVRRRRRR!** The blaring music of Cadmus's alarm filled the halls. Jimmy stood, quick-drawing his camera. Warning lights painted the facility blood-red. He'd have to compensate for that.

"What is it?" he demanded, attaching himself remora-like to the first squad of soldiers he saw.

"Boomtube detected in Illinois. We're scrambling fighters."

Jimmy stabbed his signal-watch. If Dark-Side was attacking, he had a pal with something to say about it.

* * *

It began to rain. That by itself was nothing special – it rained on Apokolips – but this wasn't acid, it was water! Clean, pure, delicious water! Scott caught it on his tongue and laughed. No, _giggled_. He had never had a home, but he was closer to it here than anywhere else. A sharp pang struck his heart. All he'd been through to get here…

Shaking his head, Scott stripped off his shirt. The rain pelted his bare chest. It was cool, almost cold, but he felt no chill. Just… clean.

His wet hair had fallen across his eyes. He swept it back and moved forward, kicking off his boots as he went. He tied the shoelaces together to wear around his neck. His naked feet squished through the mud. It felt heavenly.

Thunder boomed without lightning. A sonic boom, echoing over the rainfall. Scott's trained eyes scoured the stormclouds, picking up a blur of red and blue as it pierced a thunderhead. The heat of re-entry was bled out in a trail of steam as the blur swooped low over the treetops.

Scott strained his eyes. What was it, up in the sky? A bird? A plane?

With a rustle of dislodged leaves and snapped branches, the blur landed. The earth shook. Then the blur resolved itself into a man.

"Welcome to Earth," Superman said. "On behalf of America, welcome. We're friendlier to immigrants than most."

Scott shook his hand. The Kryptonian didn't let go.

"But we also don't take kindly to threats. Which are you?"

"What if I haven't made up my mind yet?" Scott laughed and clapped Superman's muscular shoulder. "I'm just kidding. But I'm gonna need that hand back."

Superman doesn't give it up. "You're from Apokolips."

Scott doesn't deny it.

"I'm not under the illusion that where someone's born determines who they are, not entirely, but people are right to be suspicious. And Kanjar Ro said…"

"Kanjar's crook."

"So are you. Transporting banned substances to Theta IV."

"Books."

Superman frowned. "Selling arms to terrorists."

"Freedom fighters."

"Freeing a prisoner from death row."

"He was falsely accused."

"So what are you then? Thief with a heart of gold?"

Scott blinked. "I wouldn't know. I've never checked."

Scott's hand was still trapped. He could feel the power in that grip, the texture of Superman's hand, the heat that would no doubt be reassuring if Superman were pulling him out of danger instead of into it.

Becoming an escape artist… that was just something to do that fit with his interests. And since he had nothing better to do, he had decided to become the best. But the real goal of escaping from Apokolips had been to find himself. And after five long years and hundreds of worlds, Scott had learned one thing about himself with great certainty.

He had very big issues with authority.

Scott pivoted, jerking his hand away from Superman, while chopping Superman's wrist with his other hand. The very specific combination of moves undid Superman's grip just like picking a lock. Scott had no desire for a fight and no chance of winning. He took off, hoping to lose Superman deeper in the forest, but there was another sonic boom (right behind him!) and Superman was standing in front of him.

"If only it were that easy," Superman said.

"There are twenty-four time zones on this world," Scott bit out. "That means twenty-four days. Doesn't one of them need saving?"

Superman blinked with uncertainty.

"How long's it going to take you to fly me wherever I need to go? I'll fight, so you'll have to go slow to make sure you don't drop me. Then when I get there, if you're at all conscientious you'll have to see how I'm being treated. Would you really be able to live with yourself if I died because of you? Tick tock, Superman. How much time are you willing to spend hassling an innocent man when you could be saving one?"

Suddenly Superman cocked his head. "There's an earthquake in Mexico. I don't have time to argue." With a great gust of breath he froze Scott's feet inside a lump of ice. "I'll be back for you. Don't go anywhere."

By the time he got back, Scott Free was long gone.

* * *

Escaping from the ice block was the easy part. Just a wiggle of his toe and his boot-lasers melted his way out. From there it was jogging. Given what he knew of Superman's enhanced senses, Scott thought it prudent to practice some Talokian walking meditation to alter his heart rate. The rain took care of his scent, and as for the rest… well, Scott doubted it would be helpful to disguise his _taste_.

Hopefully, another disaster would catch Superman's savior complex before he could get back around to little ol' Scott Free. Still, Scott could take no chances. He liberated some clothes from a clothesline (what the hell, the universe owed him some good karma). He was out of the woods, literally, in the outlying farmland of a big city. It was subsidized now, suburbia creeping in. He was just another guy out for a walk. Dog-walkers and joggers passed him as he slowed. They waved. He waved back. Worked hard to mimic the exact nature of their greetings. Sometimes a nod, sometimes a wave, sometimes a spoken "Morning."

Yes, it was. _So?_

Then the sun came up and he actually staggered, physically _staggered_, to the nearest fencepost for support. He'd never thought to not sleep through sunrises on shore leave and Apokolips… Apokolips didn't have sunrises like this. He didn't have words for it. He could live on Earth a lifetime and not have words for it.

But he would try.

The sound of a door being shut, bolted, and locked caught his attention. Scott turned to see a wooden shack locked up tight, a man inside... in the path of a dwarf with a flamethrower.

Scott jumped the fence and ran to save a man he'd never met

And thus his fate was sealed. 


	10. Not Running Away

Thaddeus's house was quiet in a way Apokolips never was. There was background noise, but it was all so restful. Peaceful. That's what was missing. It was the best sleep he'd gotten since he'd begun to drift away with Barda, her strong heartbeat filling his eardrums…

Thaddeus's house was _too_ quiet.

Scott got up. The couch was comfortable enough, but nonetheless he threw on clothes over the undershirt and boxers that Thad had furnished for him. He padded through the house, doing his customary ritual of searching out escape routes. There was comfort in the routine. Less so when he came across the closed door to the study and found light escaping out from under the door.

"Come in, Scott," Thaddeus said from inside. "It's open."

The doorknob turned easily and Scott stepped inside. The study, more than any other room, reflected Mr. Miracle. Old posters, models of traps, tools of the trade. It was a treasure trove for Scott, but Thaddeus's plight drew his eye. The old man was at his desk, running his aged fingers over a paper.

"Something's bothering you too," Scott said. "Trouble."

"Makes life so much more interesting, doesn't it?" Thaddeus chuckled wearily. "How long have you stayed with Oberon and I?"

"Two weeks."

"Two weeks. I haven't asked about your strange skills, because I believe you have a right to privacy and I appreciate the way you've refined my escapes."

"You still take too many risks." Scott took the chair Thaddeus offered, sitting in front of the desk.

"You don't belong in this business if you don't take risks."

"Oberon says it's the job of a good escape artist to minimize risks. To be in control at all times."

"Oberon worries too much," Thaddeus said. "Makes up for my recklessness, I suppose. You're not one to agree with him."

"It's the new trap." Scott indicated the paper Thaddeus was working on. "It's suicide. Too many variables. Someone else's equipment, someone else's trap? Insanity."

"Unfortunately, insanity wins out over sanity far too often." Thaddeus coughed. "I'm old, Scott. And I'm a showman. I can't be content with fading away."

Scott looked away from him, over to the newest tour poster. "You…"

"Can I please finish?" Thaddeus took off his reading glasses. He seemed, just a little, stronger. "People don't put the same stock in miracles they used to. They don't _believe_ any more. It used to be a man like me could snap his fingers and get enough money for a national tour. Now I have to…"

He shoved the paper across the desk to Scott. "It has a weak point. It has an escape. Every trap does."

"Because we design them to," Scott replied.

Thaddeus reached across the table and tapped Scott's head. "You're thinking too cynically! It's true that some of what we do is faked, but some of it is magic! The danger, that's real! The crowd… they're real! Deception is not our stock in trade – reality is! A reality that most people never manage to look at until we open their…" Another coughing fit engulfed him.

Scott got up, brought him a bottle of water from the mini-fridge. Thaddeus gulped it down. "Thank you, Scott."

Scott took the plans, looked through them.

"Steel Hand bet me twenty years ago that he could design an inescapable trap. And if I can escape from it, there'll be more than enough money for all of us."

"Think he'll let you bring a blowtorch?" Scott asked, only half-joking.

"Scott, I want you to listen to me very carefully. I know you can make all kinds of impossible gizmos and gadgets to assist you… but it's not the tools that make the man."

"Then what does?" Scott's face was carefully concealed behind the paper.

"You tell me."

Scott lowered the paper, his eyes moving over the wedding ring that Thaddeus still wore, the family framed on his desk. "Love."

"Yes. Even love for a cause can make a difference. But what do you love?"

"Freedom." Scott set the paper down. "The bomb gives you five minutes to get out. That's precious little time, too little of it to waste on the chains you'll be shackled with."

"What do you suggest?"

"Cheat." Scott held up a small device. "Intense magnetic repulsion could cause the chains to simply fly apart."

"That still leaves the bomb. Not enough time to pick the lock to the safe with that thing ticking away." There was a twinkle in Thaddeus's eye, indicating he knew the destination, he just wanted to know how Scott would get there.

"Defuse the bomb." Scott sat down, quickly shuffled to the edge of his seat. There was too much excitement coursing through his body for him to recline. "Then you have until you run out of air. Plenty of time to pick the lock, step outside, and take your bows."

"Steel Hand will be furious!" Thaddeus laughed. "Oh, that old blowhard deserves to be taken down a peg. He always was a bullying miser. The man is motivated by love as well, but love for money and power!" He chuckled again, lower and darker. "Of course, given my motives, I suppose I can't complain. It just goes to show… even love can be twisted."

"Into hate," Scott finished sadly.

Thaddeus squinted at the dark words. "Is there something you'd like to tell me?"

"Nothing." Scott stood. "I suppose we'll practice the new escape tomorrow, bright and early. I'd better get to bed."

"You do that." Thaddeus sat back in his chair, waiting until Scott had padded over to the door to sleep. "What did you want to say to me earlier?"

"Just…" Scott paused, his hand on the doorknob. "These past few weeks, you've been like a father to me. It was nice… to see what I've been missing."

"And you have eased the pain of the son I lost." Thaddeus smiled, crooked and wonderful. "Get some sleep, Scott. No one's using Ted's room."

Scott blinked. "Your son…"

"Would not want a shrine kept for him. Not when there's a guest tossing and turning on the couch. Go on."

"Thank you," Scott said, and closed the door before anything further could be said. On Apokolips, there was only room for the strong. The strong did not let others see them bleed. Or cry.

* * *

Everyone knew Steel Hand was dirty. It wasn't even a "whaddya gonna do?" sort of John Gotti dirty, where tourists stopped him for photographs. There was a seething wave of resentment directed at Steel Hand wherever he went and that was the way he liked it. Resentment was a side effect of fear and fear was good for business.

Even the jaded citizens of Gold Coast, always sporting for blood, kept away from the escape… some would say execution… site. Only a TV crew and Thaddeus's people were permitted to stay. A reporter was filmed in front of the death-trap. He was allowed to swing a sledgehammer to demonstrate how strong it was. The hammer blow didn't leave a scratch.

The sky was cloudless, a vast expanse of blue like a calm ocean flipped upside-down. They were a couple of miles outside the city of Gold Coast, in an old park. A statue of some war hero or another stood vigil over the concrete-paved picnic area, its shadow straining to touch the death-trap that had stolen its thunder.

"It's not too late to back out, old friend," Steel Hand said. His namesake hummed with power. It could've been from motion, but the metal appendage seemed to always be moving. It reminded Scott of a lobster, for some reason.

"Forty years and I've never backed out of an engagement." Thaddeus's mask was on. He looked like a young man. "I'll take your wager… and your money."

"So be it," Steel Hand said, his metal hand tingling.

Steel Hand's two main enforcers, Fitzgerald and Munch, finished prepping the steel vault. It was twenty feet long, state-of-the-art, and seemed more a monolith than a bank vault. Scott walked a circuit around it, earning some nasty looks from the two men. They could've been brothers, save that Munch was the shorter and Fitzgerald was scarred about the face. Stony-faced, Scott returned to Oberon and Thaddeus's side.

"I don't like it," he said.

"I beat him."

"By your rules, probably. Not by his." Scott looked at the vault again. "There's no shame in recognizing a losing fight."

"Scott, stop worrying. You're gonna shrink. It's what happened to Oberon."

Oberon straightened the chains he was, on a footladder, wrapping around Thaddeus. "Kid may not have his head screwed on 360 degrees, but he knows trouble when he sees it. Steel Hand's bad news."

"Do I have a mutiny on my hands?" Thaddeus turned from Oberon to Scott. "I'm asking you to trust me. Five minutes is plenty of time."

Fitzgerald stepped between Thaddeus and his assistants, checking the chains. He secured them with a thick lock. Scott's jaw twitched as the lock clicked shut. Oberon patted him on the back.

Thaddeus was led away, his chains rattling together with each step. Scott kept a close eye on the hand he knew his magnetic inverter was clenched in. It could be the only thing that stood in-between Thad and certain death.

Each footstep thudded loudly against the sun-baked concrete, reflecting the chains that weighed Thaddeus down. He stopped briefly in front of Steel Hand, the television camera framing him inside the entrance to the vault.

"So, will you be paying in cash or will you cut me a check?"

Steel Hand smiled. "See you on the other side, Mr. Miracle."

Thaddeus stepped inside.

The vault door closed and locked like a boulder rolling into place.

"Start the timer," Steel Hand ordered. Munch pressed a button.

Five minutes and counting.

There was a sound from inside the vault which curiously resembled rain falling.

Scott smiled in relief. "Good ol' magnetic inverter."

His mother box pinged. Oberon gave them a look.

Four minutes and counting.

Three minutes.

The vault bulged in the middle, almost imperceptibly, but with an impossibly loud thundering. It seemed to broadcast out of the vault, rolling over the park plains, a scream. Scott was in motion before he knew where to go. Towards the vault. The vault where smoke was leaking out like blood. He spun the vault from the outside, hitting the pins with genius born of panic. The door creaked open with the noise of a dying animal, a groan.

Scott stepped inside, dimly aware of the TV crew and enforcers crowding behind him. Like a cloud of insects, flaming scraps of paper were billowing the air. It wouldn't be until later that Scott would learn it was monopoly money. The exact amount Thaddeus would've won.

Thaddeus. On his back. His face and chest ripped up. His eyes blank, unfocused. Impossibly, he still clung to a blind, pained life.

Scott knelt down next to him… more like fell to his knees.

"Thaddeus?" he asked softly, fearing the answer.

"Ted…" Thaddeus said weakly.

Scott took off Thaddeus's mask. "Yeah. Yeah, it's me dad." He stroked Thaddeus's hand comfortingly. "I'm here."

"Slow… in my old age… silly of me… no more miracles…"

"Sure there will be," Scott said, swallowing his fear.

"Not for me."

A hand rested on Scott's shoulder. Scott violently shook it off. "**Get back!**"

They withdrew.

Scott took off his jacket, folding it into a pillow for the old man. Thaddeus coughed up blood, which speckled his white beard crimson. Scott's mouth worked soundlessly for him before he took out his mother box to speak for him. It pinged lowly as Scott held it over Thaddeus's eyes.

"What is it?" Thaddeus asked, just barely able to distinguish the noise. "I hear… a sound… a voice. Comforting, easing.. the pain… gone. Gone. Go…"

The rest was lost. Scott stood, slowly, his legs almost refusing to support him. The mother box he returned to his pocket. It pinged once more, marking the final closing of Thaddeus Brown's eyes.

* * *

Scott didn't go to the funeral. Oberon thought it was because he blamed himself. It was his gadgets that had convinced Thaddeus to go through with it.

Steel Hand showed up though, crying crocodile tears behind dark sunglasses. Oberon scowled up at him from across the Brown family plot, where Ted's headstone sat over earth which had never been disturbed and Ava Brown had long since been interred.

It was a sparsely attended funeral. Few remembered the name of Mr. Miracle and those who did were too busy to come from halfway across the country to say their goodbyes to a man who they hadn't seen for years already.

Oberon was too short to be pall-bearer, so there was nothing to stop him from stampeding through the rows of folding chairs to get to Steel Hand. He leaped up onto one of them, putting him just about at face-level with the mob boss.

"Oberon, old man. Didn't know they made suits in your size."

"You killed him, you son of a bitch. You shorted his time! His winnings wouldn't have even made a dent in your coffers and you killed him like a dog in the street!"

"Rich men don't stay rich by spending their money frivolously. And powerful men don't stay powerful by letting themselves be disrespected." He shoved Oberon off the chair. "Buzz off, midget."

Oberon would've made a point with it, but the enforcers looked like they were carrying. Scowling, Oberon went back to his car. His suit would be due back at the rental place soon anyway.

* * *

When Oberon got back to Thaddeus's place, the first thing he noticed was Scott's bag. It was open, and he tripped over it. Found it to be empty.

"Scott?" That bag was full of the tricks of Scott's bizarre trade.

"The house is yours," Scott said from inside the study. "I won't be needing it. I'll be leaving shortly."

Oberon stopped outside the door. "Leaving where?"

"Doesn't matter. I thought this place would be different. But it's brutal… so brutal… turns my stomach!" he said, suddenly vehement.

"Hey. Don't you start in with that. You can't give up on people. We're not all bad." He pushed the door open. "Scott?"

"I think…" Scott looked at him, looking surprisingly shy in the red and yellow and green of Thaddeus's suit. The lack of mask and cape was a jarring discrepancy. "I think he would've wanted it this way."

Oberon swallowed and said nothing.

"I've made some upgrades. Better fabric… more like armor, really. Breathing filters in the mask. Aero-disks in the boots. Some other surprises. But I kept the look exactly the same."

"You're going after Steel Hand."

It wasn't a question. Scott treated it accordingly.

"On Apoko…" Scott pulled up a chair. "Where I come from, injustice abounds. Those with power walked all over those who had none. There was no accountability or justice. Tyrants got away with hurting people every minute of every day." He picked up the green cape, which now flowed like a living thing with each motion. "Not this time."

Oberon nodded a little. "Anything I can do to help?"

* * *

Steel Hand's headquarters were inauspicious. Just a four-story office building with an underground parking garage. He kept an apartment fit for a king in the top story, with guards on hand at all time. At night, there were only the two. Fitzgerald and Munch.

It was a quiet night, just like any other. Until a boom shook the world.

By the time Steel Hand had thrown a robe on, his guards were at attention. Just Fitzgerald and Munch. It was a small operation.

"Call in more boys," he said. "And the cops, for good measure."

Fitzgerald went to do that.

"It came from the roof," Munch said.

"We'll check it out."

Fitzgerald returned, a shotgun at the ready. Munch pulled his piece as well, a handgun. Steel Hand flexed his namesake and kept in-between them as they went up the stairs. His slippers padded over the harsh concrete at the top of his headquarters, quartered by safety railings and marred by an air conditioning unit. The three men filed out, aghast at what they saw.

The bank vault Thaddeus Brown had died in, its closed door facing them.

"What the hell is this?" Steel Hand stroked his chin, the fingers that did so even colder than the night winds batting at them. "Some kind of sick joke?"

"The dwarf, ya think?"

"I don't know if he has the _cojones_ to pull this off."

The lock moved suddenly. First to one side, then the other. Like a clock ticking off.

"What the _hell_ is this?" Steel Hand asked again. "I shouldn't have to put up with this."

The lock flew to the right, to the left, right, right, left. The pins falling into place with greater and greater resounds.

"Something's in there," Fitzgerald said, both hands nervously gripping the shotgun.

"It's automated. All smoke and mirrors. A trick!" Steel Hand insisted.

The combination lock hit one last time, then grinded open. The vault gave a jolt as the door opened a slice, a tendril of grayish smoke drooling out of the narrow opening.

"I hope you don't mind the delay," a voice said from inside. "But we didn't set a time limit, did we?"

"Thaddeus…" Steel Hand said quietly, then with a greater conviction. "Thaddeus is dead! And if this is supposed to make me feel guilty, it won't work! I'm innocent."

The door coughed open a little more, shaking on its hinges. "I'm sure you're a lot of things, Steel Hand, but innocent isn't among them."

"Stop hiding! Come out where I can see you! We'll talk about this like gentlemen!"

"Gentleman isn't among them either," the voice said. "You want to talk, come in here. It's nice and toasty."

Steel Hand gestured for his men to bring their guns up. "Why don't you open that door all the way? Maybe I will."

"Fair enough."

The door swung open all the way and a flood of smoke poured out. Fitzgerald and Munch fired immediately, the great explosion of the shotgun adding punctuation to the peppering pops of the handgun. Their shots scorched the inside of the vault, ricocheting around the back of it like a great drum. Gunsmoke thick in the air, they exhausted their ammo. Reloaded.

"Check it out," Steel Hand ordered.

Fitzgerald looked cross at him.

"What are you waiting for? Someone will have heard and called the cops! If he's dead, I want the body disposed of. If not, he will be soon. Get in there!"

Fitzgerald pumped his shotgun and stalked forward towards the vault. The inside was black with the residue of the explosion earlier, and the deeper black of dried blood. Although the smoke was clearing, anything could've been inside there. He kept his gun trained at the back of the vault. Given its narrow constraints, the spread from a shotgun would give anyone a hurt.

Switching the shotgun to one hand, Fitzgerald angled the vault door open a bit further. He didn't want it to close on him. He stepped inside, both feet. Took hold of the shotgun with both hands once more.

"There's nothing in here," he said finally.

Gloved hands reached down from the roof of the vault, grabbed his head and slammed him face first against a safety deposit box. The shotgun went off, boom deafening in the enclosed space, the flash making Munch and Steel Hand squint. With an indescribable sound, Mr. Miracle was released from whatever hold he had on the ceiling. He swung down, maneuvering the dazed Fitzgerald into position as a human shield and dragging him towards the edge of the roof.

"Shoot him!" Steel Hand screamed.

"I can't, Fitz is in the way!"

"Shoot through him!"

Mr. Miracle's feet slapped against the concrete as he got closer to the edge. Fitzgerald's eyes blinked open through the blood of his broken nose.

"Aww, shit…"

Steel Hand grabbed the handgun from Munch, fired a single shot into Fitzgerald's chest. The enforcer slumped and Mr. Miracle released him, diving off the edge of the roof, a hail of bullets trailing him.

"No way he could survive that fall," Munch assured himself. "No _way_."

"It's only four stories. Check it."

Munch looked at him, aghast.

Steel Hand casually pointed the gun at him. "Check. It."

Munch cautiously stepped to the edge, as if by taking his time he would give that weird vault demon enough time to hit the ground. Taking firm hold of the railing, he bent over the side. His tie dangled over the edge. It looked like there was nothing there. Not even a body on the ground far below.

Then Mr. Miracle looked up, breaking the tight hold he had to the wall. With the speed of a striking cobra, his hand sunk into Munch's tie.

"God!"

"Actually," Mr. Miracle said thoughtfully, "yes."

He yanked Munch over the edge. The enforcer disappeared so quickly it was like he had never been there at all.

Steel Hand stared at where Munch had been just a moment ago, breathing hard. A cold sweat devoured his features, bleaching them in the moonlight. The gun in his hand wavered, so he switched to the metal one.

"Come on up here, you freak! Face me like a man!"

"If you insist…"

The aero-disks buzzed as they levitated Mr. Miracle over the side of the building. Munch was in front of him, an arm wrapped tight as steel around his neck. Steel Hand aimed carefully, trying to decide whether or not to fire. On the one hand, this time he might be able to blow that monster out of the sky. On the other, shooting Munch would leave him all alone with…

"You?" He racked the chamber. "You're dead! I saw you die!"

With a final gasp, Munch gave up the ghost. Mr. Miracle let his unconscious body slip out of the chokehold and fall to the floor.

"The age of miracles isn't over yet, Steel Hand. You needed a bomb to kill an old man. Do you really need a gun to kill a young one?"

Steel Hand grinded his teeth. Crushed the gun between metal fingers. "All I need… are these five fingers!"

The aero-disks irised shut, disengaging into Mr. Miracle's boot heels. He landed with a slight bent to his knee, rose. His cape gathered tightly around him, they circled each other. Steel Hand's thumb grinded against his palm. He was a hard man. Harder than anyone else, that's how he'd gotten where he was. No way some two-bit punk kid was harder than him.

"You know, Thaddeus Brown… don't know why you're bothering to avenge him. He was destined to end in an early grave. Never was willing to fight for what was his. That's why he failed in the first place. That's why his son left, that's why his wife died, and that's why you're going to fail. Because there's no such thing as miracles and it's gonna take one to bring me down."

The new Mr. Miracle's stare was impenetrable. "Good. I brought two."

He rushed forward, legs pumping a staccato rhythm before he hit Steel Hand. Two quick punches, bam, bam, to the left of his face. Steel Hand's fist moved like lightning. Mr. Miracle was almost as fast. His head threw back, turning a killing blow into a glancing one, but the steel still knocked him off his feet. He rolled along the ground, jerking to a stop when Steel Hand stepped on his cape.

Mr. Miracle pulled on the cape, stretching it. Steel Hand smiled, thinking he had Scott held fast, but Mr. Miracle was just setting him up. He snapped up with the cape's elastic rebound, hitting Steel Hand in the midsection like a charging bull. Steel Hand flew back a few feet. Mr. Miracle threw his cape over his shoulder. The punch had chipped one of his lenses.

"You're not ghost," Steel Hand spat. "You're flesh and blood, just like me."

"Not exactly like you."

"That's where you' right." Steel Hand shook his metal fist. "Because flesh and blood are nothing compared to metal!"

"Show me."

Steel Hand rushed him and Mr. Miracle dove out of the way… coming up short when that damned hand closed around the folds of his cape. He continued his somersault forward, bringing the heel of his foot hard against Steel Hand's wrist. A bone cracked in it and Steel Hand released him. Mr. Miracle rolled up to the mouth of the vault and popped up, on his feet again. Steel Hand growled.

"Is that your best? Because if that's your best, you're gonna have to do better."

Steel Hand rushed him again, pivoting on his heel to turn his momentum into a backhanded swing. Mr. Miracle pulled the vault door in the way of the blow. The metal dented, but it held. Using the door as a gymnast would use a pommel, he leapt up and delivered a two-footed kick to Steel Hand's face. Teeth chipped and blood poured out of the mob boss's nose. Enraged, he chased Mr. Miracle into the confines of the vault.

Mr. Miracle ducked and weaved, avoiding the hammer blows that demolished the safety deposit boxes around him. The vault creaked and groaned like a dying body in response to the battle waging inside it. Mr. Miracle struck forward with a jab to Steel Hand's throat and stomach, danced backwards again to avoid the return blow. Steel Hand kept moving him back, intent on pinning him against the end of the vault and finishing him there. Mr. Miracle played right into his hands, moving inexorably backward even as he scored a number of ineffectual hits.

His back hit the wall. Mr. Miracle was surprised long enough for Steel Hand's flesh hand to settle around his throat.

"Gotcha." Steel Hand pulled back his metal hand for a final punch. "This is the second time I've had to kill a Mr. Miracle this week. This time, learn your lesson."

Steel Hand threw the punch.

Then he had a vague sense of pain in his human hand and the sound of metal tearing and Mr. Miracle was beside him, unharmed.

"How…?"

"Sleight of hand. I'm faster than I look. Sorry about your thumb, by the way."

Steel Hand looked at it. Mr. Miracle had broken it and it flopped along the back of his hand. Before he even had a chance to process that, Mr. Miracle was holding a metal stake covered in weird circuitry.

"This is an EMP spike. Disables electronics. I really don't know how that prosthetic of yours works, but I'm guessing its mechanical rather than magical."

"Kill you…" Steel Hand struggled to pull his hand out of the wall it was embedded in. "I'll kill you!"

Mr. Miracle's voice hardened. "No, Steel Hand. You won't be killing anyone ever again."

He slammed the spike home through Steel Hand's palm, nailing it to the vault. The metal hand's fingers curled inward like the legs of a dying insect. Steel Hand reached for Mr. Miracle with his remaining hand, but the escape artist was already backing out of the vault.

"You can't just leave me here!"

"You're right." Mr. Miracle reached behind his back, produced a small electronic device. "I can't. Drop something?" He pressed a button. LED lights lit up and five minutes appeared on the device, counting down. "Say hi to Thad for me."

He closed the vault as he left, leaving Steel Hand's screams to echo in on themselves.

The next morning, the police found Fitzgerald, his wound cleaned and bandaged. He was handcuffed to the door of the vault along with Munch, Steel Hand's taped confession hanging around his neck. And inside, the police found Steel Hand, staring blankly into space. They never figured out how a mere clock radio drove him mad.

* * *

Scott Free switched off the TV. The news report on Steel Hand was depressing him anyway.

"Hey, I was watching that!" Oberon groused. He was a good grouser. Scott would miss that.

"Just thought you'd want to say your goodbyes."

"Why?" Oberon's head swiveled to regard him. "I gave you an alibi. Not that I think the police will be knocking down your door to find out who handed them Steel Hand on a platter." He stroked his bristly beard. "Intergang might, once they send someone to take over this city's mob. Not that I'm saying we're not better off, but better the devil you know, right?"

Scott fixed him with a cold stare. "I've met the devil. Trust me, sometimes you're better off."

"Leap of faith, I guess."

"Yeah." Scott adjusted his fedora. "Leap of faith. I left the suit in the den. Be careful who you give it to you. Those upgrades could be dangerous in the wrong hands. In fact, I'd just as soon let it die with Thaddeus."

Oberon hopped down from the couch, following Scott to the door. "Thaddeus wouldn't have wanted that."

"How do you know?"

"Because he left you the name in the will." Oberon pulled an envelope out of his pocket, handed it to Scott. "It's mostly a merchandising thing, action figures, cartoons, that sorta thing… but if he were here, I'm sure he'd tell you it meant what I'm telling you. You are Mr. Miracle."

"Mr. Miracle's a vigilante?" Scott asked with some humor.

"He is now. You've got a great act, Scott. I'd be proud to assist you."

Scott mused it over. The truth was, it had felt good to finally make a difference instead of running away. To stand and fight instead of always letting men like Steel Hand and Darkseid take. They had taken so much already… why let them take _this_? Mr. Miracle meant more to him than anything had in a long time. And as much as the tenets of anti-life said different, there was more to life than survival.

It felt good, to suddenly have a home. Scott smiled widely.

"Done, Oberon. From now on, we're both part of Mr. Miracle—super escape artist!" 


	11. The Long Way Down

Scott was the oddest man Oberon had ever met. If he weren't Scott Free, Oberon would think he was bipolar. He would loosen up while planning a new stunt, laughing and joking with Oberon, then he'd fall into deep melancholies after he pulled one off. Oberon left him alone when he got that way. When he came back to the house Scott lived, it would either look like a tornado had blown through it or would be fastidiously clean. Oberon didn't ask.

Thaddeus Brown's house was, slowly but surely, conforming to its new owner's tastes. Each of Scott's little episodes transformed it a little further. The Goya prints of war that Thad had bought when his son was sent to the frontlines… Scott threw them out and it was only Oberon's quick thinking that saved priceless artwork from a garbage heap.

As much as Oberon joked about Scott growing up in a barn, he was starting to think it bore more resemblance to a war zone. He never stayed in that house long enough for Scott to sleep, but sometimes he caught Scott in a nap. They were always restless, fitful affairs. Nightmares.

His phone rang. Oberon fought his way out of the warm embrace of his bedsheets, hoping for Scott's sake that boy wasn't calling to figure out a dishwasher. Oberon's apartment was no paradise, but it was infinitely preferable to a trek to Thaddeus's house in the country.

"Yeah?" he answered.

"Oberon, Ted Brown is here. He's Mr. Miracle's son." Scott's voice was still as neutral as ever, that sell-you-something voice that always made Oberon wonder what Peter Coyote sounded like as a young man, but there was a quickness in it that betrayed his apprehension.

Oberon grabbed his car keys.

* * *

Ted Brown didn't like Scott Free. There was something a little too ethereal about his boyish good looks. His eyes were too blue, his graceful movements too quick and sure. And yet he was having trouble brewing tea.

"I'm really not thirsty," Ted demurred.

Scott struggled to untangle a teabag. "I insist." He accidentally ripped it open, reached for a new one. "Oberon will be here soon. If you have any questions about your father…"

"I'd rather hear it from you," Ted interrupted, standing up from the leather couch Scott had invaded the living room with. He remembered this home growing up, constant, and now this stranger was turning it into something it wasn't.

The teakettle whistled. Scott shut the stove off, abandoning the teabags to the trash and the boiling water to the sink. Steam wisped up from the sink as Scott leaned over it, hands bolted to the counter.

"Your father died doing what he loved. He was doing an escape. A criminal named Steel Hand sabotaged it. He died..." Scott choked on emotion, quickly spat it out. "A good death. I brought Steel Hand to justice. The matter's resolved, all except for the wisdom you take away from it."

Ted almost guffawed in disbelief. He settled on the obvious: "You're not him." It was as much an accusation as a statement of fact.

"I try to be."

"Why?"

Scott shrugged. "I admired him. His mission."

Ted walked to the bookshelf along the far room, Scott shadowing him out of the kitchen and into the living room. Some of the dust-covers were clean, others still unread. There seemed to have been some new books added, glossy sides next to frayed and yellow pages. Dickens, Shakespeare, Twain… authors no one read unless they had a paper to write.

"What mission was that?" Ted stuck his hands in his pockets, examined the bookends closer. They were new. "My father was a great showman. The cape, the mask, the name. But that's _all he was_. An escape artist."

"Just an escape artist? He was so much more than that." Scott held out his hand, two fingers in, two out, in an operatic gesture. As if offering the truth of his words to Ted. "He put a little wonder, a little mystery, into life. He gave people hope that everything hadn't been filed away in dusty drawers. He gave them an escape from the ordinary. If you don't understand that, maybe you don't know your father as well as you thought.

Ted steamrolled over the space between himself and Scott, stopping only when he was in the other man's face. "I spent five years in an enemy prison camp. I knew my death would destroy my father. I stayed alive for him. Then I got out to learn he had died. Never knowing if his own son were alive or dead. I came home to find a billboard about how Mr. Miracle was escaping from a flaming straitjacket. And you tell me I don't know my own father. You have no idea what it's like to stay in chains so long you forget what freedom is like. No idea what it's like to live each day for someone else."

"You'd be surprised," Scott said, shaken but still carefully neutral. "I don't know what your relationship with your father was like. Five years' worth of nostalgia can do a lot to the human memory. But I do know that fighting with a stranger for your dead father's love doesn't make you a good son."

An electric jolt turned Ted's body rigid. With the preamble of a thunderbolt on a clear day, a tear rolled down his cheek. More followed. Ted turned away, scrubbing at his eyes with his sleeve. He coughed, choking with misery, and it turned into a strangled sob. His hands were curled into fists that boiled with impotent rage.

"You son of a bitch," he said, voice cracking. A hand was spidered over his eyes, like a mask.

"It's quite possible." Scott's voice was moving closer, a tremor of sympathy in it. "I wouldn't know."

Ted tried to tell Scott to take his sympathy to hell, but the words refused to be summoned. Strong hands spun him around, so fast Ted thought it was an attack, but then Scott had pulled him into a hug. The embrace was too harsh, too tight, like an amateur trying something he had heard about but never done before. Still, Ted felt himself drawn to the freely offered intimacy from the man who had been insulting him just a minute ago.

"Your father was proud of you." Scott had such raw humanity in his voice that Ted didn't doubt a syllable. "Prouder than he was of himself. Anyone could see that."

"He's right, kid," Oberon said from the doorway. "You think Thaddeus wanted you to follow in his footsteps and that Scott usurped your birthright."

A nod. Ted still clung to Scott unashamedly, a drowning man with a life preserver. A man who'd been drowning for five years.

"But Thad never wanted you to do anything but walk your own road. He told me once that it takes guts to fight for your own freedom. That's human. But to fight for other people's freedom is heroic. Thad wasn't a hero. But he was proud to be father to one."

Ted broke away from Scott, leaving the shoulder of the other man's T-shirt wet. He went for a box of tissues and found it right where his father used to keep it.

"Thanks Oberon." He blew his nose. Wadded it up and dropped it in the trash can. "And thank you… Mr. Miracle."

"You don't have to call me that," Scott said, his armor back up.

"I know. You keep doing what you're doing, okay? Don't stop. Don't stop for nothing."

"Eh, maestro, I hate to interrupt the moment, but I heard something on the radio while I was riding over here. Take a listen."

Oberon flipped on the TV. Scott examined it quizzically as Oberon turned to a news channel. Watched as the news report played out. Two hours ago an impenetrable forcefield had appeared around Galveston. A man inside claimed responsibility; the police believed him, owing to the personal forcefield he wore. He'd gathered some local legbreakers into a feudal army and was going to start executing hostages at the city limits, just inside the forcefield.

"What are his demands?" Ted asked. "He's gotta want something."

"He wants the name of Darkseid to be feared," Scott said. "I know that guy. He's a big shot as long as he's got his shield, but take it away… Oberon, where's this taking place?"

"Galveston." Scott's look was a prompt. "Texas. Why?"

Scott was already off, pulling his costume out of the wall vault and throwing it on. "Shieldos has a forcefield that protects him from any damage. They can't get through it, but I can."

"Wait a minute, Shieldos?" Ted interrupted. "You used to fight this guy?"

"Not really…" Scott pulled his mask on. "I served under him."

"You were one of them?"

"Oberon! Ted! I know you have a lot of questions and believe me, I'm willing to answer them, but right now there's a maniac tearing up my home and I'm the only one who can stop him."

* * *

Illinois to Texas was a short-trip by Boomtube, even a short range one that had a tendency to… wiggle. Texas was warmer than he was used to, a burst of warm air greeting him that reminded him of a Fire-Pit. That was quickly tempered by the chill of the sea and the night. The night was lit up by gathered police and other rescue workers, unable to do anything but wait. Scott could already feel the tension they were generating. Although he knew it was sawhorses keeping the press back several tens of feet, from his bird's eye view it seemed as if the tension itself were separating them.

Lit by portable lights and flashing sirens, seven hostages knelt, chained, just inside the forcefield. Only one of them was still begging for help. The rest were either crying or stoically staring forward… either accepting their fates or just plain checked out, Scott couldn't tell.

They (the ever-omnipotent They) had called out the big guns for this disaster. Superman, Aquaman, the Flash, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman were all searching for ways in. The longer this dragged on, the more would show up. Scott wasn't going to let it drag on.

"Superman," Wonder Woman cried, pointing out Scott.

Scott skidded to a stop on his aero-disks, waiting as Superman hovered up to meet him. They regarded each other, Scott feeling the tingle of Superman X-raying through his mask.

"You're the one from Apokolips," he said, a note of judgment entering his voice. "If you have anything to do with this…"

Scott held up his hands quickly, pleadingly. "I'm here to put a stop to this, same as you. That forcefield is basic ionic. I can bypass it with a simple application of quantum vibration."

Superman looked to the Flash, who stopped an attempt to shake his way through the forcefield to nod. "It could work, but it's hard to imagine anyone trying it without being shaken apart."

Scott drew a device from his belt. "This shakes me. The mesons built into my suit will keep me together."

"And if they don't?" Superman asked.

"Well, then I won't be your problem."

Superman stared into him, unsure. Scott let out a deep breath. He'd known Apokolips had a bad reputation… one well-earned… but he felt sure that by keeping his nose to the ground and coming as far from the galactic mainstream as Earth he could avoid the worst of it. And yet, here he was. Funny, in a way. After all the convolutions he'd gone through just to decide to fight, now he couldn't.

"You let me help these people. Please. Just give me a chance."

Superman crossed his arms, turning it over in his mind. "Are you sure you can handle him?"

"Oh, believe me. I'll handle him."

"Then get in there." No longer had Superman spoken the words than Scott was flying past him. "And be careful."

Scott spun to look at him. "Where's the fun in that?"

Smiling, he flew backward through the forcefield.

Mr. Miracle felt a shiver of something not quite anticipation as he came out the other side. As alien as they were to him, the sight of the strange costumes of the Justice League and their law enforcement helpers were comforting… after a fashion. It had been their ilk who had dealt with Steel Hand so efficiently, sometimes asking for and giving Scott help during his adventures… although he had tried to steer clear of the superheroes, who had more perceptiveness when it came to extraterrestrials. He still had no wish for his origins to be common knowledge.

But now they would be no help to him. For most of his life, he'd had someone to rely on… Himon, Barda, the crew of his freight, Oberon… now he would face Shieldos on his own. Fear. That was the word for it. He was actually afraid.

How novel. How entirely inconvenient.

Mr. Miracle landed, retracting his aero-disks into his bootheels. With a razor hidden in the index finger of his glove, he severed the hostages' bonds. From across the forcefield, Superman nodded in approval.

"Where should we run?" the crying hostage asked, wiping the tears from his eyes. "Or should we hide?"

"Neither," Scott said, turning on the city. "You're going to want to watch this."

* * *

The further Mr. Miracle got in the city, guided by the freed hostages who stayed a safe distance back, the easiest it was to spot Shieldos's attacks. A fire here, an overturned car there… but no people. They passed an eighteen-wheeler that had crashed halfway through a building. A scent of sea salt filled Scott's nostrils.

Then an intersection. The buildings surrounding it were scarred with power-blasts. There must have been two hundred people, all kneeling with their hands on their heads. The occasional thug with a shotgun or impromptu melee weapon wandered their borders. At the center, Shieldos was raking extensions of his personal forcefield over the concrete like giant fingernails. He always had been an idiot.

Scott cold-cocked the nearest guard. Caught his shotgun and pumped it empty, then dropped it to the ground amidst its discarded shells. Shieldos noticed. He looked as brutish as ever, his tusk-mouthed visage hidden behind the distortion of his shield. With a huff of irritation, he waved more thugs towards Scott. They ran, a pair of them, converging on Mr. Miracle from either side. Scott kicked some shotgun shells towards the one on his right, causing him to slip, fall, and face-plant. That one dealt with, he pivoted on his heel to face the one on his left. That legbreaker was armed with a crowbar. It swung, slow as ketchup coming out of the bottle to one of Scott's reflexes, and then Mr. Miracle was easily under it and coming back up with an uppercut. The man dropped, his crowbar clanging as it settled beside him.

That made Shieldos sit up from his throne – a two-ton car compressed by a forcefield into a chair's shape.

"In Darkseid's name, who goes there?"

"I go decidedly _not_ in Darkseid's name," Mr. Miracle said in the Apokoliptian language as he pushed his way through the crowd of hostages. Some of them were tentatively standing. "You're a fool, Shieldos. You serve a greater fool. Darkseid doesn't care about you. He doesn't care about anyone."

Shieldos replied in the same guttural dialect. "And you serve these people. You think they're any different? If they knew who you were, if they knew where you came from, they'd turn on you in an instant."

"That's an instant more than Darkseid ever gave me."

With a wave of his forcefield, Shieldos cleared the civilians between himself and Mr. Miracle. Scott grimaced as he heard bones break.

"So, New God," Shieldos said, leering foully. "What do they call you on this pissant little world?"

"They call me **Mister** Miracle!"

The forcefield swelled around Shieldos like a cloak kicked up by the wind, giving him the appearance of being infused with St. Elmo's Fire. Mr. Miracle dove to the side just in time as Shieldos pointed to him, the shield extending from his arm in a river of energy. The attack just cleared his heels, punching a car behind him. Scott ignored the sound of it rolling end over end, preferring the sound of the Thanagarian death-circle he drew from his belt and hurled at the man from Apokolips.

It bounced off his personal shield.

"Different frequencies for your armor and the city shield." Scott snorted. "Why can't evil be dumb?"

The forcefield burst forth from Shieldos in a shockwave, flattering the hostages to the ground. Mr. Miracle held on to a streetlamp, staying upright. He reared his head up in time to see the liquid shield flowing upwards like an upside-down waterfall, supporting a car full of people.

"Granny trained us for heroic interference!" he shouted. "There's a high probability that you will go to extraordinary lengths to prevent ordinary collateral damage. Senseless, but true. Catch!"

He hurled the car towards a head-on collision with a skyscraper. No time for aero-disks. Scott hopped on one foot, peeling the deactivated aero-disk from his heel, then took off up the side of the building using his grav-directors. Usually wall-walking wasn't nearly as useful as flight, but it came in handy.

Mr. Miracle skidded to a stop on the window the car was about to hit, holding out his hand and deploying the aero-disk in his palm. The car came to a gentle stop. Its front bumper was a foot from his head. Inside, the family buckled their seatbelts. Mr. Miracle closed his hand, shutting the aero-disk off, and the car dropped ten feet down onto its wheels.

"This could get boring," Shieldos said. "Me, throwing cars, you catching them." The forcefield slithered out from his hands, wrapping around _two_ cars. "Let's cut this short."

"Let's."

Scott threw the aero-disk forward like a Frisbee, belly-flopping onto it in mid-air. He slanted down into Shieldos, tackling him head-on. With the shield at a different frequency, he couldn't penetrate it, but the attempt knocked Shieldos for a loop. Scott flapped the aero-disk down on the ground, having set it to expand from a foot in diameter to a meter. Shieldos recovered, threw a punch. Mr. Miracle rolled with it, but the blow tugged the bottom of his mask from his neckline. It flapped in the wind. Scott ignored it, busy dashing behind Shieldos and grabbing him in a full-nelson.

"Let's get some air," he hissed into his enemy's ear.

The aero-disk carried them upward and out, skimming over the city's skyline. It was all Mr. Miracle could do to keep hold of Shieldos as the man elbowed him in the ribs, headbutted him in the nose, delivered body blow after body blow knowing it was impossible for Scott to retaliate. The solid/ephemeral feel of the forcefield became a constant companion to Mr. Miracle, racking him as he carried Shieldos away.

"How much punishment can your body take before you give?" Shieldos taunted, gut-punching Scott.

"Enough," Scott gritted out.

Shieldos ripped the mask off, Scott too weak to resist.

"I know you… public enemy number one! Scott Free! So this is the hole in the ground you've crawled into." His forcefield slammed into Scott, nearly knocking him off the aero-disk. "There are standing orders for your capture. When I bring your head to Granny, I'll be richly rewarded."

The land under them turned to sea and still Scott absorbed the punishment. He remembered worse, but it had been so long. Each bruise not only hurt, but it brought back the memories of just how intense his childhood suffering had been. He was seeing double, Granny Goodness's cruel sport and Shieldos's current beatdown. Still, he could be strong. He would show them he could be strong. Show them all.

"Where's your woman, Scott Free?" Shieldos was focusing on the face now, punching it over and over again. Scott feared the next time he looked in a mirror. "I'll tell you where. She's the head of Darkseid's honor guard. She has slain millions in his name!"

"No! You lie!" Scott howled through a bloody mouth.

"She services a different Parademon every minute of every night! She revels in her degradation; she enjoys it as a born slut! I've seen it! It's an inspiring sight!" Shieldos laughed. "How can you live without Darkseid?"

Scott looked him in the eye fiercely, with such fearlessness that Shieldos was actually stunned silent.

"Better than you can live without air," Scott rasped out.

He shrunk the aero-disk back to its normal size.

Shieldos fell, his forcefield switching to a different configuration with each mile he fell. He realized they were all useless just in time to scream before he hit water. The shield protected him from the brunt of the impact, but couldn't keep him afloat. Scott watched as his counterpart sunk below the waves.

"Watch that first step, Shieldos," he said through the thin air. "It's a doozy."

* * *

He Boomtubed back to the Brown house before they could find him. Unmasked, he staggered through the backdoor and into the kitchen. He must've blacked out for a moment, or just not noticed them, because Oberon and Ted were helping him to the couch.

"You okay?" Ted asked. "You look like hell."

"Fucker got my mask," Scott said. "So I dropped him in the Bay of Mexico. He's not much of a swimmer."

"You fought him. We saw the pre-fight on the news," Oberon said.

"What are you, a superhero now?" Ted asked. "Mr. Miracle is just a gimmick. It's not…"

"I'm no hero," Scott interrupted, holding up a hand. "It was a smart choice."

"Yeah, looks like it," Oberon said as he filled a bag of ice.

"Part of my cunning scheme. Apokoliptian warriors all have the same weakness… once they get their blood up, they shut their brains down. Using my body as a punching bag distracted him long enough for me to take care of business." Scott smiled. "He's probably dog-paddling to Cuba by now."

Oberon pressed the ice-bag to the side of Scott's face that was slightly more bruised than the other. "Even Castro doesn't deserve that guy."

"I was being facetious. Shieldos had two options. Drown, or boomtube back to Apokolips."

"Couldn't he just… boomtube to dry land?" Ted asked, busying himself with getting Scott a glass of water.

"No. He's a low-level hack. Not trusted enough for a boomtube that isn't one-way. Those either go to the target, or back to Apokolips. Nowhere else."

"Why?"

"To prevent them from doing what I did: Escape." Scott graciously took the glass of water from Ted. "I suppose it's time both of you hear the whole story."

* * *

Shieldos coughed up what must have been a quart of seawater onto the floor before noticing he was in Darkseid's palace… the courtroom. Various minions scurried about, and Darkseid's generals were in attendance as well. Their chairs circled the great pedestal on which Darkseid's throne sat, a mountain with staircases at north, south, east, and west. Shieldos lowered his forcefield and kissed the first step. Dripping wet, he looked up at Great Darkseid, who beckoned him closer.

"My liege, I bring excellent news of Earth."

"You have recovered the anti-life equation?" Darkseid demanded… never asked.

"No. I have found a far greater prize. Scott… Free."

The room explored with murmurs. Darkseid silenced them with a mood, brought the Female Furies forth with a gesture.

"You're ready?"

Barda stepped forward, jaw set, but eyes downcast. "I've waited five years for this. Let me go to Earth, sire. I'll pay Scott Free back for all he did to me."


	12. Living

Five years since Scott had left. Or since she'd left him. It was hard to tell some days.

Five years, four months, one week, four days, eight hours, and seven minutes.

Her father box kept count.

She'd ordered it to and no matter how much it hurt her, she couldn't bring herself to tell it to lose track.

It had been thirty seconds since she'd heard Scott's name again for the first time in five years and her heart was already racing.

Scott Free.

Damn him.

Darkseid spoke cleanly, calmly, almost fastidiously. He put his house in order and continued with the audience. An assemblage of Lowlies were brought forth with various ailments and Darkseid granted them the mercy of the Omega Beams, or a beating if their condition was not terminal. Barda watched the Parademons mauling a band of hypochondriacs with disdain. Parademons knew nothing of inflicting pain. If they broke a bone, it would only be by accident.

It was Dr. Bedlam to whom the privilege of hunting down Scott would go. He puffed up like a peacock, his consciousness seated in one of the gaudiest of his Animates. Barda deepened her scowl just for him. He was a preening, sadistic freak of a scientist, dedicated to a dream of replacing Darkseid's armies with legions of Animates like himself. If he did so, whatever last vestiges of honor through combat and the warrior's way that remained from Steppenwolf's regime would be lost. Thankfully, he was only capable of possessing one Animate at a time and his research into improving his capacity had born little fruit even by Apokolips' infertile, stagnant standards.

Barda left the audience a little ahead of Darkseid's ending sermon on anti-life, adjourning to a balcony just to the side of the throne room. A new statue of Darkseid was being erected, Lowlies clinging to the scaffolding around it. Barda watched as one lost his footing and fell to his (her? From the distance it was hard to tell sex) demise.

"I can't believe I ever thought Scott was one of those," Granny said as she joined Barda. "Granny isn't great Darkseid; she makes mistakes now and then. He should've been one of us, the Elite, but he was always so willful… we should have gotten him when he was younger."

"What do you mean, 'we'?"

"Apokolips."

Barda snorted.

* * *

Desaad's torture chamber had been upgraded in the last few years. With the coming of the God-War, he could now torture gods instead of mortals. Barda didn't recognize the half-corpse from New Genesis suffering on Desaad's rack. She was glad. No opponent of hers deserved to fall into such a fate.

"Barda, what an unexpected surprise!" Desaad said, clapping his hands. He had a stab-wand in his hand and was practically dancing around his captive, inflicting small cuts that pained Barda to look at. So inefficient. Sadism had no place on a battlefield.

"You heard about Free?" Barda said, not even bothering to cross her arms over her ample cleavage. She knew that Desaad's leer would fall on the healing limp she'd acquired in her last battle anyway.

"Oooooh yes, Scott. Scott Free. Desaadite, tea!"

One of Desaad's minions, his face painfully contorted by all manner of sharp instruments to resemble his master's, his dark purple cloak a threadbare mirror of Desaad's, hustled off to prepare some. Barda fixed his back with a cool expression. Desaad took Apokoliptian conformity to narcissistic extremes.

"I've been thinking up such delicious tortures for Scotty when he gets back." Desaad jammed the stab-wand into the prisoner's back, wiggled it around. "It's like a burst of creativity, right behind my eyeballs. Ooh, there's nothing like settling an old score. You'll bring him to me, won't you? You beat him, I'll break him. The perfect team…"

With a grunt, he jerked an organ out of the prisoner's body. Held it out to Barda.

"What's that?"

"Lung."

"Why would I want that?"

"Well, I don't know!" Desaad protested. "_Women!_"

* * *

She kept walking. The bronze and blue chainmail of her officer's uniform failed to keep her warm, so she hugged her cape tightly around herself. It might make her look weak, but she didn't care… didn't feel like dealing with political infighting at the moment, court intrigue, or whatever it was. All she wanted to do was protect Apokolips. Scott wasn't part of Apokolips. He had no bearing on her.

And yet, when she tried to think of something she particularly liked about Apokolips, some reason to owe loyalty to it other than accident of birth, she kept thinking of Scott. The memories, so long buried, stirred like disturbed sluice at the bottom of the sea. Lowering her visibility to zero.

She turned left at the barrier between the city and a section of Wild Apokolips that even a hellbore couldn't destroy. The evident of its failure remained in a cold fire-pit overrun by vines.

Barda could hear a blade falling from a mile away, and she did. The machete hacked through a vine, which fell open to allow Kanto out of the jungle. He stared at Barda as if she had intruded on some private ritual.

"Out for air?"

"Poisons. The very best grow wild." He held up a vial of something loathsome. "A painful, but quiet death… locked inside glass."

"You have an assignment?"

"You disapprove?"

"Who?"

"A Lowly leader who's getting just a little too popular." Kanto traced his goatee with his fingers. "I'd give Scott too clean a death for Darkseid's taste."

"I didn't ask," Barda said as she walked away.

"No, you didn't."

She let him have the last word.

* * *

Barda put her Furies through their paces. No sparring, just a run. They reached an average of sixty MPH, even with Stompa lagging behind. Kicking up tremors with each step. She had a light spar with her unit afterwards, beating everyone soundly and offering them a few tips. That always served as suitable foreplay.

She had taken lovers since Scott's departure, if you could call them that, and the latest was Lashina. It was expected of her, the sex intended to strength the bond of loyalty and efficiency among her team. She put up with it without complaining, seeing it as maintenance for her body. The same thing as exercising or eating, really. But she was chagrined by the noises Lashina made under her when they fucked in Barda's officer bunk, double-wide and located in the communal room same as all the other beds. It seemed Scott had decided to take up permanent resident in her neocortex, because she couldn't rid herself of the comparison between how tender Scott had been and how rough Lashina was. Even though Scott had none of the Furies' special powers training, he had been more satisfying.

The orgasm was less fulfilling than usual.

Following their culmination, a few of the other Furies in the barracks clapped and went about their business. Lashina got up to leave and Barda grabbed her arm, surprising her. She looked at Barda as if trying to decide whether it was an attack. It was expected, also, for ambitious underlings to be culled.

"Stay," Barda said. Lashina looked uncertain, so she added "That's an order."

Lashina acquiesced.

They laid in bed together like corpses in the same burial plot, stiff and unyielding although their bodies were joined at the side. Tentatively, Barda moved her hand upward and stroked Lashina's arm. The other woman instantly tensed. Barda rolled over, facing away from her.

If she closed her eyes…

"Put your arms around me," she said.

Lashina did, spooning with her. Barda squeezed her eyes shut tightly and tried to imagine it as it had been. The first and last time she'd been happy.

Lashina's arm slid upwards, coiled around her throat. A chokehold, and quick too.

"You were right. This position leaves you quite vulnerable."

"It does," Barda said wonderingly as she broke the hold with a flexing of her neck muscles.

"What?"

"I said it does." Louder that time.

* * *

A walk through the medical tent was next. Despite what you'd think, they don't lose many patients. Curing people is easy when you don't care about pain. Injured limbs are hacked off, replaced with crude metal prosthetics. Skin is stitched together. Barda spotted one of the new recruits, herself five years past, a girl with no arms or legs who looked so much like dancing Auralie that it hurt.

Barda was still the best and she's gotten better, but she'd made mistakes too. A scar or two criss-crossed her broad back; a healing cut marred the line of her jaw. The problem of people leering at her, at the New Genesis-esque beauty they claimed to despise, would be solved by the time she was Granny Goodness's age. She'd never asked how an immortal had gotten so old. Could've been the pollution. She hated the pollution. The smell. How had she never noticed how much she hated the smell of Apokolips until she thought about it?

She left behind her mind became more jumbled.

* * *

The Ministry of Secrets was the most understaffed of all Darkseid's bureaus. Apokolips was too blunt an instrument to have much use for espionage, or any subtlety at all. Barda had access to it. She bluntly demanded to see all counterintelligence files going back five years.

There was no file on Scott. Barda waded through the deep mire of paperwork twice over just to make sure. Not a single cursory mention. As far as the spies were concerned, Scott Free had never existed. Barda was about to go over the papers a third time when one of the Furies found her.

"It's time for the raid on New Genesis," she said.

"I'll be right out."

She went to the barracks, passing a line of Parademons goose-stepping towards their departure point. Slovenly animals, pressed into service as shock troops. They'd eat up a thousand bullets before a single Fury entered the fray. She almost felt sorry for them. Then, with a start, realized she did.

Under her bed were a few small effects. Meager showings for five years of blood and glory. Barda looked at the medals, arranged like a constellation of stars, and reached under them for the harem outfit she had once been compelled to wear. She put it on before she quantum-switched it out for her battle armor. It felt honest, wearing that under (so to speak) her armor. At least when that… _bikini_ presented her as a piece of meat, it did so forthrightly. The epiphany brought anger. The anger grew into rage.

She was chewing over her fury, literally working her teeth against each other, as she marched through the Boomtube with her Furies.

* * *

And was somewhat surprised to find herself on New Genesis. Not the city and not a soul in sight. Just grass and trees and the occasional animal, which sniffed at them without fear until one of the Parademons took a bite out of a deer-like thing. Where was the enemy? What were they raiding?

Realization came as a sting to Barda's new and sensitive sense of… something. There was a meadow ahead where a class of children, none older than ten cycles, playing with each other peacefully. What conflicts arose were swiftly quelled by a teacher, who was in turn quelled with dreadful silence by Lashina's garrote.

Apokolips was a barren place, where nothing grew… not even children, for the most part. Barda knew that children were taken under its care, but she had always thought they were being _rescued_. Put into Granny Goodness's orphanage for their own good. But what good could come of removing a child from a place like this, where they were always happy and looked after? No matter how decadent it was, this was a better place for a child than Apokolips. Any place was better than Apokolips.

"Oooh, this one's plump!" Granny said as she herded a child into a kennel with his fellows. "We'll work that blubber off, pudgy!"

Barda had considered having children, a flight of fancy that had died five years, four months, one week, and five days ago. But Apokolips was no place for children. For anyone, really, except the devils who had made it what it was. She didn't want to be one of those devils.

There were holes in the story. There always were. But she'd accepted Scott being a spy without thinking about it. Scott as a secret agent had never fit, but she had wanted it to. His betrayal gave her an excuse to stay. The truth was, and always had been, that she was scared. Escape meant other worlds, with different people and no one to tell you what to do, how to think, who to be… it was terrifying.

She wasn't fearless, but she could be.

"I can't do this anymore," Barda realized out loud.

"What else _can_ you do?" Granny asked her, unsympathetic and cruel as always. "No one quits Apokolips."

"Scott did."

Realization came slower for Granny Goodness than Barda's Mega-Rod. The club brained her and she slumped to the ground, a weight Barda no longer had any use for.

"Retreat!" she called, kicking Granny's body behind some bushes. "All forces, retreat! Back to Apokolips!"

"Die for Darkseid?" a Parademon asked, obviously confused.

"Not today," Barda told it.

She opened a Boomtube, just like the Furies were doing. On the other end, she could spot Virman Vundabar's quizzical expression. Leading from the rear, as usual. He was quickly eclipsed by the stampede of returning Furies and Parademons. It had been said that "retreat" wasn't a word in Apokoliptian vocabulary. Barda introduced it. As an act of courage, it was strange, but then Apokolips was a strange place.

Barda closed the Boomtubes before anyone could ask why she wasn't coming along. The New Genesis gods would be coming, cursed Orion and hated Lightray and the others, but she had made peace with them. They would take the children back to Supertown, fortify it. There wouldn't be a repeat performance by Granny Goodness… especially after the New Gods found her.

Big Barda hadn't been ready to leave Apokolips. She was now. She punched new coordinates into her Mega-Rod, opened her last Boomtube, and stepped through it.

She was going to see Scott.


	13. Retne Annataz

The howls for their blood were suffused with coughing, with wild gibbering and manic giggling, with all the stresses of their unholy birth. The one whose head Hawkman had crushed with his n-metal mace kept coming until Green Arrow shot a drill-arrow through its heart.

"We may be in over our heads," Scott Free said.

"Us?" Superman grinned with neither false modesty or smugness. "Never."

Scott had been called in by the JLA to provide "expert advice" on the Evil Factory twenty miles below the Cadmus Project. They'd been certain it was deserted, but a countdown trap had triggered, opening all the pens and letting the freakish genetic experiments out. Crossbreeds of Earth and Apokolips DNA were swarming the facility. One of Batman's satellites had an infrared visor locked onto them and showed that none of the freaks had escaped the Factory… for now.

They had managed to bar themselves in the control room, alone except for the monster Green Arrow had just killed.

"This happen to you people a lot?" Scott asked.

"All the time," Wonder Woman said. "Check the databanks, there might be something we can use."

In fact, Scott was kinda wondering why someone else hadn't done that. His first inclination was to hang back and let the professionals handle this. The thought that he was one of the professionals hadn't occurred to him. Of course they probably didn't know that an Apokoliptian computer looked like a bust of Darkseid. Scott took out his mother box and set it down on top of the bust. Instantly, a holographic keyboard and display shone out of the bust's eyes and mouth.

"Simyan and Mokkari," Scott hissed with recognition. "I should've known. We're dealing with weaponized life here, not just idle experimentation." He typed in a series of commands and a third hologram appeared, a strange bit of iconography that resembled a dissolving skull. "Uh-oh."

"What's 'uh-oh'?" Batman growled.

"Standard Apokolips protocol. If you're going down, take as many of the enemy with you as you can." Scott grinned humorlessly. "Die for Darkseid."

Something was pounding and scratching at the door, the lust of the hunt screaming past the heavy metal. Green Arrow, an arrow already nocked, took aim before he was satisfied that the door would hold.

"They set the generator for overload," Scott continued. "Enough Radiecton to power this place into the next millennium and it's set to blow. But by the time it does, those monsters will be scattered all over the state. A completely invasive ecosystem, right in the heart of America. Textbook Darkseid… Barda would've loved this! Just from a tactical standpoint, of course…"

"I'm happy you're impressed." Batman swung to face Superman. "Two threats, two teams."

"Agreed. Green Lantern, have you finished scanning the building?"

Green Lantern nodded and displayed a jade hologram of the building's schematics. "My ring has analyzed the superstructure. Explosions at these points…" Red glowing dots appeared on the map, "would destabilize the entire facility. It'd cave right in."

"My mother box concurs, but you'd need to take out the auto-repair system as well." Scott's mother box shone a laser light on its housing. "Double the explosive power there, just to be sure."

Batman was already detaching a compartment from his utility belt. "Flash, set these on all the weak points."

Flash took the compartment. "Just point me in the right direction."

Something new struck the door and the entire room shook, lights fluttering. The holographic display died out. Green Lantern's ring and Wonder Woman's lasso glowed, relighting the dim room.

"There are six exit-points. The rest of us will contain the creatures there," Superman ordered. "Scott, you shut down the reactor."

"It's a two-man job." Before Superman could say anything, Scott had grabbed Zatanna's shoulder. "You free?"

She smiled. "Never shut down an alien reactor before."

"Me neither. First time for anything."

"Everything," Zatanna corrected him

Mr. Miracle grabbed hold of the bust, flipped upward, and kicked open a duct on the ceiling. Without breaking from his handstand, he wiggled up into the air duct and lowered a hand down.

"Come with me if you want to live." She took it. "Terminator, 1984, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn?"

He pulled her off with an "oof!" that got him an elbow in the ribs. _I'm not _that_ heavy_, Zatanna thought.

"J'onn's advice. I'm peppering movie references into everyday conversations to help me fit in better."

"I can see it's working out well for you."

"You gonna be okay up there?" Superman asked, Batman looking sourer than usual next to them.

"Mother box has it all mapped out. You just make sure none of these creatures get out. No telling what plagues they'll be carrying."

"We'll handle it," Batman said gruffly.

Scott, sitting in the air duct, shuffled to the side. "Ladies first."

And they started crawling down the duct.

The door was bending inward, the creatures' malformed noise louder than ever. A tentacle slithered in through a crack, looked at them through an eye at its tip. Wonder Woman ripped it out by the root.

Green Arrow passed a crossbow to Black Canary. "Alright then. Open it up."

Far behind them, Zatanna and Scott heard the sound of battle being joined.

* * *

"Pretty bird," Ollie began, pausing to bury an arrow like a knife into a monster's throat before shooting it through another monster's eye, "you take the ones with spines that can be broken, I'll shoot the rest."

"Deal."

* * *

The mother box, secured to Scott's shoulder by an arm-strap, pinged encouragingly with each correct turn they made.

"Left," Scott said.

Up ahead, Zatanna took the turn. "So, why'd you ask for my help?"

"Lots of reasons," Scott said, not mentioning the one right ahead of him, covered by coat-tails.

* * *

Hawkman's mace sung. Hawkgirl's sword joined it in duet.

"Stand fast, eternal love. Victories are not woven from numbers alone!"

Hawkgirl blocked a clawed blow, kicked it back the way it came. "But I bet they make up a great deal of the cloth."

* * *

Scott and Zatanna passed over a room that was hot like an oven. The bottom of the duct burnt her hands even through her white silk gloves.

"So, what is this place, anyway?"

"Best guess? Biochemical Foothold station. They'll be developing viruses to target the metahuman gene. One-man plagues to transform Leaguers like you into monsters." A bead of sweat dripped out from under his mask's eyehole and into Scott's eye. "I heard some of Darkseid's Elite started out that way. Dr. Bedlam used to be a superhero. Then they ripped his soul out of his body and blasted it with evilly-charged electrons until all the good in him died out. The hunger dogs still tell stories about his screams…" The metal cooled beneath them and Scott brightened. "They tried that on me once. It's easy to beat once you figure out the trick."

"What's the trick?"

"There's no such thing as evilly-charged electrons."

"Oh yes of course, it's so simple!"

* * *

Wonder Woman strung her golden lasso around her knuckles as the horde came on, howling and gibbering and salivating with dark urges.

"The Amazons guard the gates of Hades itself." She tightened the rope. "We'd hunt your kind for sport when not in the mood for a challenge."

* * *

The reactor looked something like a fifty-foot-tall, space-age lava lamp with a hatch at the very top. There was a catwalk circling its top, a flight of stairs leading down from it. The ring of grating encircled the reactor top, bridging the gap with a catwalk that intersected the hatch.

A duct cover fell down, hit the top of the stairs, and circled the reactor on its way down. Scott and Zatanna followed it, landing on the grating.

"You know how to shut this thing down?" Zatanna asked.

The energy inside the glass reactor gaped open like a mouth screaming.

Scott held up his mother box. "My baby's been synthesizing oxyproton. Two drops of this stuff will quell any nuclear reaction…"

"What is it?"

Scott's boots rattled the grating as he ran to the hatch. "No radiometer. No fuel injector assembly, no waste water disposal line, nothing… that son of a bitch, he couldn't have…" Scott turned the hatch desperately. It easily spun until he opened it, no light coming out but a desperate, full, mind-shattering SCREAM! Scott threw the hatch closed.

"Darkseid's testes! It's not powered by Radiecton. It's powered by a New God soul!"

"What?"

"That shielding isn't to keep the radiation in… isn't shielding at all… it's soundproofing to keep the screaming in."

Scott took off his cape. "Soul-engine is a delicate thing. All it takes is the smallest erg of metaphysical energy to unbalance it. That's how they ripped Bedlam's soul out of his gut."

Zatanna blinked. "You're going to sacrifice yourself?"

"Always wanted to see if I could escape death." Scott handed her his cape. "Hold onto this for me."

Before Zatanna could take it, hairy arms wrapped around her and a padded palm was shoved against her mouth. Simyan, ape-like despite his massive intellect, and the golden-faced Mokkari had come out of hiding. Mokkari backed Scott onto the catwalk with a blaster-pistol. His claw-like finger was on the trigger.

"Scott Free!" Mokkari simmered. "I told you, Simyan, I told you if we waited, the humans would bring him right to us."

* * *

Superman's eyes grew brighter and brighter until an entire corridor's worth of monsters had been incinerated. Their ashes were the only sign they had ever existed.

"I'm sorry," he said again, as a host of new monsters filled the hall.

* * *

"Simyan, Mokkari," Scott greeted, his voice far from friendly. "I would've expected you'd have left by now."

"We don't abandon our posts. We're not deserters like you or Barda."

"Don't even say her name, you malpracticing slime."

Mokkari opened a Boomtube on the other end of the catwalk, trapping Scott between a rock and a hard place. Scott backed into the hatch, unlocked but shut. It jostled just enough to let out a pale yell.

"Step into the vortex, Scott," Simyan cooed. "It's time for the prodigal son to return and receive his just desserts."

Mokkari gestured with the blaster-pistol, adding emphasis to the bladed words.

"I need to ask her a question first."

Zatanna struggled against Simyan's grip. The monkey-man blew the hat off her head.

"Very well. Ask your question."

Scott took a breath, steeling himself. "Zana, you doing anything on Friday?"

Simyan had already taken his hand off Zatanna's mouth, allowing her to say "Smra otni sekans."

Simyan backed away, screaming, as his arms unspooled into massive pythons that snapped at him. Mokkari screamed as well, screamed until Scott moved faster than humanly possible to grab him by the head and bash his face against the catwalk's handrail. The blaster-pistol went flying.

They wrestled down the catwalk, Scott abusing the gilded alien with hard knees to the midsection and headbutts.

"You're a hero behind a gun, Mokkari, but you've always sucked at hand-to-hand!" Scott taunted as he threw Mokkari backwards into the hatch.

Mokkari screamed Darkseid's name as he lunged. Scott caught him by the neck, kicked the hatch open, and stuffed him inside. Mokkari's legs kicked as Scott shoved him down.

"Die for Darkseid," Scott quipped as Mokkari finally came loose, falling down to stop up the eternal scream.

Simyan, his arms still hissing, threw himself into the Boomtube. It closed after him.

"Nobody touches my hat," Zatanna said, picking up said headwear. "Who were those guys?"

"Old classmates. Miss Zatara, you're about to witness the resurrection of a god." He clicked his heels together three times. Aero-disks spiraled out of his heels. "You'll not want to stand too close."

Zatanna took his hands for the second time that day. "The Wizard of Oz, 1939, Judy Garland."

Scott smiled. "See? I'm fitting in already."

They took flight as the reactor screamed loud enough to be heard even through the soundproofing.

* * *

Green Lantern couldn't hold them back much longer. The forcefield blocking the corridor was powered by an iron will, but even iron could be broken with enough force. He had barely had time to prepare himself for the sheer force of the onslaught.

"Finished yet?"

Batman finished fiddling with a sharp _klik!_ "Done."

Cracks started to run through the emerald shield. Batman ran for it. After a moment, Green Lantern dropped the forcefield and pulled up another one around himself.

The monsters came, tripping the first of Batman's mines. The first wave was blown sky high. As was the second. And the third. Batman and Green Lantern waited for the horde to sacrifice enough of themselves to make it through, Batarang and shimmering power ring at the ready.

* * *

Zatanna summoned up a bunker as soon as they touched down, encasing them within a construct of concrete and metal that she'd seen in footage of the Manhattan Project. They watched through mystically-provided goggles as the reactor split open. For a moment, gemmed mist hung in the air, still in the vague shape of the shattered reactor. Then it condescended. The rainbow of colors sorted themselves out, blue aura and fleshy body and eyes as green as jade.

"I know his name…" Scott muttered, his hand tightly clasped with Zatanna's. "Aurakles."

"**Yes**?" the first superhero rumbled.

* * *

Faster than the Flash, the monsters were cut down. Stronger than Superman were the blows that sundered them. The creatures dropped dead as if killed by the same heart attack.

The Flash set the last charge.

* * *

"What will happen to him now?" Zatanna asked, dispelling the bunker.

"He'll go back to Apokolips. The old chains hold his bones tight and this freedom will prove transitory." Scott smiled as Aurakles vanished, component by component. "But that makes it all the sweeter. Come on. This place is gonna blow soon."

The staircase around the destroyed reactor toppled. Scott casually walked past it to the exit. He held the door open for Zatanna.

"You sure know how to show a girl a good time," she said as she passed him.

Scott checked his mother box. Plenty of time for a leisurely stroll before the Evil Factory went mushroom cloud. "You should see the villainous lairs I blow up on second dates."

"Were you really asking me out on a date?" Zatanna asked from out of the blue.

"Depends. What would your answer have been?"

* * *

"Yes," Batman answered for her.

Zatanna was just setting an shard of glass from the reactor in the trophy room of the Hall of Justice. The glass was stained to metaphysical iridescence by the force of the New God's passing, sort of a magical looking glass. Could come in handy. Then Batman had pulled the first half of his appearing/disappearing act to grill her on Scott.

"You're assigning me a mission… to go on a date?"

"Did you say no?"

"I left him hanging."

"That's good. Gives you the element of surprise."

Wearily, Zatanna sat down. She took off her top hat and wiped at her brow. "Alright, start guilting me into saying yes."

Batman towered over her. "Superman's considering bringing Mr. Miracle into the League on a full-time basis."

"Good. He could be a real asset. Especially with the attacks from Apokolips stepping up lately..."

"Hn." Batman paced to near the end of the room, as if suddenly finding a giant mummified scarab-alien of pressing interest. "I don't trust him. Just as Darkseid starts his attacks, a stranger shows up with encyclopedic knowledge of our enemy's methods? It's too convenient."

"You think he's a spy?"

Batman looked back at her. "How well do we really know him?"

"That's funny, coming from you, Bruce."

"Don't use my name in—" Batman scowled. "I see your point. Still, I'd rather be paranoid now than sorry later."

Zatanna held up a finger. "One date. If I say he's clean, you don't bring it up again. No snide little remarks, no more spying, you trust him just like you do me or Superman."

"'Superman or I'."

"Appropriate. Sometimes I think those are the only people you trust."

"I trust Robin." Batman fixed her with a stare. "And I wouldn't trust you with this if I didn't trust _you_."

"Well, maybe we'll get lucky and he'll like boys. Then you can send Robin after him."

Zatanna had taken her eyes off him and that comment had prompted him to disappear, giving him the de facto last word.

"I've gotta learn how he does that," Zatanna said as she looked around. "It'd be a killer addition to the act."

* * *

Scott answered the door to find Zatanna Zatara on his doorstep… about as pleasant a surprise as he could imagine.

"The League sent me," she said, truthfully.

"I must say, if everyone the League sends me is as beautiful as you, they're welcome to have their next meeting here. Come in, come in."

Zatanna stepped inside. "I'm here to administer the test to see if you're qualified to join the JLA."

"I'm game." Scott sat down on an easy chair. "Ask me anything."

"Is there a Mrs. Miracle?" Zatanna asked cheekily before summoning up coffee for both of them.

He wasn't quite sure how to answer that.

* * *

"Flight to Sector 2814'll run you four thousand creds. All now, none later. Luggage stolen by pirates will _not_ be reimbursed. And we don't allow Qwardians onboard." Kanjar Ro, captain of the passenger ship _Borrosos_, looked at his newest passenger. "You're not a Qwardian, are you?"

Big Barda stared back at him, not giving an inch. "No. I'm worse."

Kanjar Ro dismissed it as bluster. "Final destination is Earth, eh? Seeing a lot of traffic there lately. I always thought it was a bit of a backwater planet myself. You meeting someone there?"

"Scott Free."

"Scott Free…" Kanjar Ro repeated. "He sell you out too?"

Barda cocked her head.

"That slimy little _prox'ak_… I gave him an assignment and not only did he refuse to carry it out, he warned the target! Ended up with a lot of good men in jail."

"You seek revenge on Scott Free?" Barda asked. In a moment of wholly un-Apokoliptian subtlety, she made herself sound hopeful.

"Oh yeah. I'm gonna rip him apart to his constituent ions. You in? He's a slippery devil. We should…" Kanjar Ro leered. "Pool our resources."

"How fortunate that I found you." Barda slid her Mega-Rod from her belt. "Fortunate for me and Scott, that is. Not for you."

Barda took the _Borrosos_ access key from him after she was done. It was a good ship whether captained or merely ridden in, and she had a long journey ahead of her.


	14. Blood And Wine, Bread And Circuses

Scott buttoned his shirt up over his undershirt as he led Zatanna inside. She was dressed similar to him… white buttondown shirt, brown leather jacket, and jeans… although he doubted he would have looked as good in the spaghetti strap sandals.

"I always thought that superhero meetings traditionally began with a misunderstanding and a bout of wrestling," Scott said.

"If you're dead-set on it, we could always wrestle later."

"Are you flirting with me?"

Zatanna smiled slyly. "Good, you noticed."

The house was gearing up for the semi-annual clean-a-thon, i.e., in a state of complete and utter disarray. Scott kicked old pizza boxes and magazines out of the way as they made their way to the dining room. Ted and Oberon were sitting at the card table in folding chairs. The larger, wooden dining room table was floating above them on aero-disks, leaving plenty of room for the cigar smoke circling around the ceiling and the shenanigans below.

"Zatanna, these are the guys," Scott introduced. "Ted Brown, my manager, and Oberon, my assistant."

She shook both of their hands.

"Enchanted," Ted said.

"Pleased to meet you," Oberon said.

"The famous Oberon. At last we meet. My father told me a lot about you. Said you were one of the best in the business, although with magicians like the ones you assist, not like you have to exert yourself."

Scott pulled up a chair for her, staking it into the ground behind her. "Don't be fooled by how easy I make it look. Oberon helps me rig everything right. Keeps the show on an even keel. Ain't that right, Obi?"

Oberon chomped down on his cigar. "This kid listened to me, he'd live a whole lot longer. What little has sunken through that thick bedrock skull of his, that's kept him alive so far."

"If I had listened to you, we would never have more than two nickels to rub together." Scott sat down next to Zatanna. "The guy got all skittish about a Chinese Water Torture Cell."

"A Chinese Water Torture Cell?"

"A Chinese Water Torture Cell."

"Immersion stunts are amateur stuff," Zatanna said. "Any magician worth his salt can do one."

Scott gestured out at Oberon with an open hand. "You see? You see? _Zatanna_ said that. Are you going to argue with Zatanna?"

Ted was taking a swig of beer. "So, we gonna play cards or what? Not that you aren't fascinating." He smiled at Zatanna. "But I really do have to win some of my money back."

"The guys are teaching me poker," Scott explained. "Apparently, this is an extremely important part of day-to-day living on Earth."

"Of course it is! You ever seen Casino Royale?"

"Oberon is our reigning champion." Scott smiled. "We could always leave these two to go fish if you want to get on with the interview…"

"Interview?" Oberon repeated dully.

"Scott here is being considered for membership in the Justice League," Zatanna said, sounding a little proud of him.

As if she had anything to do with it.

It was happening again. Oberon could sense it, like he had an ear to the railroad tracks. Fame and fortune and cocksure magicians getting in over their head. Same thing happened to Thaddeus. Arrogance and women… that'll do anyone in, superhero or not. Oberon rolled his cigar to the corner of his mouth.

"Awright!" Ted said, putting a hand up for the high five. Scott stared at it for a minute, realized, said "oh!", and then gave him five.

"Mind if I deal?" Zatanna asked as she crossed one long leg over the other. "What? You think I'm just going to let you boys have all the fun?"

"Go ahead," Oberon said magnanimously.

Okay, maybe it was petty of him, but when trouble came along wearing fishnets with a siren song of fortune and glory, the prospect of kicking her ass at cards filled his heart with a very masculine glee.

Zatanna held up her hand and the cards from all over the table flew into her hand as if drawn by a magnet. She began shuffling them expertly. Ted, who believed in reincarnation, started to wonder if she had been a Vegas card shark in a past life.

"So, you guys got anything to eat?"

Scott gestured to some greasy cardboard boxes. "We have pizza and we have pizza with lots of vegetables on it. My apologies for the spread. I've been living on delivery for a while now."

"Then allow me to deliver. Rennir si devres."

In the center of the table, a feast worthy of a king packed itself together, nearly overflowing the table… and it did, in octopus tentacles that stretched past the four poker players, reaching out onto new food stands that appeared out of nowhere.

Oberon accepted a hot dog from a New York street vendor who thought for sure he had played Portal one too many times. He still didn't like her.

"That's a nice trick," Ted said, already buttering some toast that had shot out of the join in the folding table.

"It's no trick. Real magic." Zatanna began dealing the cards out. "So, Scott…" A notepad and pen levitated out of her jacket and stood at the ready. "Where were you born?"

"Apokolips, Despairville. A town so small we didn't have a village idiot, we all took turns."

The pen scribbled of its own accord.

"And your parents?"

"Deceased. Killed for crimes against the state. I don't even remember them."

"I'm sorry," Zatanna said. She finished dealing the cards and squeezed his shoulder. Oberon rolled his eyes. "Powers?" she asked hesitantly.

"I know my way around a pair of handcuffs." His tone had never changed. "I was given aerotrooper training. Hand-to-hand, energy weapons, aero-disk flight… the usual."

"I'll put down 'technical expertise, Apokoliptian'." Zatanna pulled a crisp, clean hundred dollar bill from her sleeve and snapped it before throwing it in the pot. "I raise."

"How do we know you aren't keeping cards up there?" Oberon challenged.

"You don't. Scott, arch-nemesis?"

The poker game was well underway, but Scott only had eyes for Zatanna. His hand wasn't that good anyway, but he'd parroted glories to Darkseid enough times to have faith in his poker face.

"I don't have one. Unless you count Granny Goodness. She's not a big fan. And Steel Hand, but he's doing thirty-to-life. Don't think he'll be much trouble."

"You'd be surprised."

"Granny Goodness?" Ted guffawed. "Name like that, how much trouble can she be?"

"_You'd_ be surprised. I call." Scott slapped down two fifties. "Obi?"

Oberon hated nicknames. "Damn right I call." Five twenties.

"I call too," Ted said.

"You don't have enough."

"I'd accept a cigar," Zatanna said mischievously.

"Oberon," Ted said.

"These are my cigars…"

"Oberon, you've been like an uncle to me…"

Grumbling, Oberon gave a cigar to Ted, who promptly threw it in the pot.

"Base of operations?" Zatanna asked, eying the cigar.

"Shouldn't you be showing us your hand?"

"You first."

"Base of operations…" Scott said as he laid out two pair. "You're sitting it in. Islington, New Hampshire, if you must insist."

"Oh, I must, I must."

"You were bluffing with two pair?" Oberon laughed and hit the table with a full house. "Ted, embarrass yourself."

Ted dropped his hand onto the table. "Three of a kind. Scott, I could've taken you…"

"Sorry."

Oberon rounded up the pot. "Zee, there's no shame in defeat."

"That's good." Zatanna dropped four of a kind on the table, one by one. She picked the cigar out of the pot first. "Anyone got a light?"

Scott pulled a lighter from his pocket. When he lit it, it shot out a blowtorch flame before settling to a normal fire.

"Much obliged." Zatanna leaned back in her chair, gesturing the pot onto her side of the table with two fingers. "So, what's say we make this interesting, boys? Strip poker?"

"Scott, an advance on next week's check?" Ted pleaded.

"I spoil you," Scott said as he peeled the money from his billfold and passed it to Ted.

Zatanna took a whiff of Scott's shirt as she carried it out the door. "Smells summer-fresh! You have got to tell me what laundry detergent you use."

"Ancient Apokoliptian secret," Scott said, trying not to feel self-conscious about standing in the doorway wearing nothing but his boxers.

"Scott, we need more Calgon!" Oberon yelled from the laundry room, having a pressing need for clean clothes.

"Ancient Apokoliptian secret, huh?" Zatanna smirked.

"Am I going to get those pants back or not?"

Zatanna shifted the pile of clothes so that she was holding it under one arm, then closed her free hand into a fist. When she opened it, a white card was lying in her palm. She handed it to him.

"If you want 'em, you know where to find me."

Scott checked out the card. It read:

Zatanna  
Mistress of Magic

He looked up at her. "Simple sleight of hand."

"Really?" Zatanna grinned. "Look again."

Scott did, and found a dove perched on his finger. He shook it off and it flew to Zatanna's shoulder.

"See you around, Scott Free."

"Not if I see you first," Scott said, watching her walk to the car. Then quickly closing the door before the neighbors could see him.

* * *

It was a bright Sunday morning when Barda came to Earth. The first thing she noticed about Earth was that it was _loud_. The second thing she noticed was the eighteen-wheeler bearing down on her. Her split-second reflexes carried her into a defensive posture. The grille of the truck shattered against her should like a wave against a rocky shore.

The driver hadn't been wearing a seatbelt. He was catapulted through the windshield, flying over the hood until Barda caught him. And shook him threateningly. "Watch where you're going, hunger dog!"

Around her, Times Square had ground to a halt. Barda looked at her surroundings, feeling thousands of eyes on her. Millions, as a camera crew broadcast the truck footage as breaking news. Coincidentally, the live footage was plastered onto the Times Square Jumbotron, mirroring her every move.

"You all saw it, he attacked me!" She shook the truck driver for emphasis.

In the movies, the aliens always invaded from the skies and the resistance was always underground. In reality, aliens could come from just about anywhere and the resistance was in space.

Superman was on monitor duty. He looked up from the truck footage and out the window as if he could make out the details through the void of space. See all the way to the busy street an Apokoliptian invader had just attacked. And perhaps he could, for his deep blue eyes narrowed in anger.

"Justice League, form up on New York. We've got a problem."

Barda set the petrified driver down. Brushed fragments of his windshield off his clothes. The truck driver cringed.

"I'll let you off with a warning," Barda said. Then her scowl softened. "Be more careful in the future."

"We're all take care," Superman said as his team assembled in the skies of Manhattan. "We'll take care of _you_."

Barda slid her Mega-Rod out of its holster. The crowd of New Yorkers pulled back, but not far enough to lose sight of the action.

"Take care of me," she repeated as the trucker driver ran. She humored him. "I'm looking for a man named Scott Free."

"Bounty hunter," Green Lantern grunted.

"Or an assassin." Superman X-rayed her weapon. He knew enough science to realize the technology inside was superior to Krypton's. "I doubt he'll want to see you."

"And I doubt you speak for him! Take me to Scott! _Now!!_"

Green Arrow already had a boxing glove arrow nocked. "I'm not letting some outer-space fascist bimbo dictate terms!"

He fired with a sharp twang just as Dinah shouted out a Canary Cry. Barda's helmet canceled out the sonic attack. She grabbed the arrow as easily as one would pluck a fruit from a low-hanging branch. Stared at it, a bit of graffiti staining her perspective.

"Are you mentally deficient?" she asked as he fumbled for another arrow. "You go into battle with primitive weaponry accessorized by handwear. You insult me with your mere presence on the battlefield."

Just as Ollie drew back his bow again, Barda threw the arrow into his face, knocking him clean out. It ricocheted into Dinah, sending her wig spinning. They both fell on the ground, a goose egg already swelling under Ollie's right eye.

"Anyone else want some?"

* * *

The curtains parted and Zatanna came out to the usual, intoxicating rush of applause and catcalls from the audience. So what if some of it was for her costume rather than her? She acknowledged the fact with a scandalously flirtatious smile. It was a nice big amphitheater, lots of lights, lots of seats. Just like she liked it. David Copperfield couldn't get this big a spread.

She was dressed mock-formally to fit the high-class evening venue, instead of one of her more flamboyant outfits. A black bow tie around her swan-like throat, a tight white shirt under a jacket that was as satin as her bow-tie and as dark as her long hair, satiny bikini panties to match. Her shirt was tucked into it, the long tails of her jacket covering her ass. Not that she had anything to be ashamed of, but she believed there was a fine line between classy and trashy. Fishnet stockings were _not_ necessarily trashy.

A particularly loud wolf-whistle snatched her attention to the front row. Scott Free, large as life and grinning like he knew it. Shaken, she went through her monologue. Wonders of magic, power of belief, lame jokes, yadda yadda.

A water tank was wheeled on stage. One of her beefcake assistants held out a straitjacket like a coat.

"I know you folks have seen Chinese Water Torture Cells before – heck, some of you have probably done them!"

She winked at Scott. His grin went wide when he saw it was directed at him.

Zatanna took off her black jacket, leaving her in her white tuxedo shirt. Half the audience had come to see what was straining against her silken dickey and dark waistcoat. She lavished them with the latter's unbuttoning.

"I'm sure you'd all like to see something more interesting than me getting dunked in there," she said, rich with irony as she gestured to the 'inescapable' water tank.

Scott was on the edge of his seat.

Zatanna handed her waistcoat and jacket to her assistant, who looked good enough for the cover of a Harley Quinn romance novel ("Batman-on-man: Behind Caved Doors."). Then she let him help her into the straitjacket. Scott gave her an exaggerated pout to go with the audience's groan of disappointment. Bondage and fishnets… she was hitting all the kinks tonight. Hopefully Scott didn't have a macrophilia fetish. Zatanna had lost enough men to that skank Giganta.

"The fastest escape artist in the world can do this in thirty seconds. Tonight, I will either break that record or die trying."

The himbo gave her a last-minute check-over – the air tube in her collar, the lockpick sewn into the jacket – before he began chaining her up. Her equal-opportunity cheesecake assistant manacled her feet together. Bending forward at the waist, Zatanna doffed her hat to Misty for safekeeping. For a moment of levity, Misty dumped a rabbit and (Misty was still only an apprentice) some rabbit pellets out of the hat. Laughs all around.

"Now perhaps one of you kind gentlemen would like to assist me?"

Scott had made the plant in the audience the moment he'd entered the auditorium. The plant was halfway out of his seat before Zatanna called on Scott.

"You there. Come on up here, cutie. Help me show these people magic is real."

A spotlight landed on Scott with blinding force. Shielding his eyes, he walked up on stage.

"Hello, stranger," Zatanna greeted drolly. "Tell these nice folks your name."

"Scott."

"Scott," Zatanna repeated breathily. Seduction in front of a thousand-strong audience. Why'd he always attract the exhibitionists? "What do you do, Scott?"

"Actually I'm interviewing for a job now; security."

"So you know your way around a pair of handcuffs."

Scott blushed. "You could say that."

"You're blushing, we haven't embarrassed you, have we?"

The last of her locks being clicked into place punctuated the sentence. A few titters from the audience. Scott held up his thumb and forefinger, ye apart. "Little bit."

"Scott, could you test these chains?"

He did. Tugged on them with all his might. Even a Female Fury would be hard-pressed to break them. He knelt down to rattle her leg irons and tried not to notice the view.

"People get killed doing this, you know," he whispered to her. Not a stage whisper either.

"Don't be such a worrywart."

"I am." He looked up at her. "I'm worried about you. I lost a woman I cared about once. It's not an experience I wish to repeat."

She smiled, supremely confident. "If it comes to that, at least you're good at rescues."

Scott hung around while an assistant attaching a crane hook to Zatanna's leg irons, although Zatanna's eyes were frantically shooing him off. "Have fun getting wet," he mouthed.

"Always do," she replied as she was hoisted up into the air and then down into the tank.

Twelve seconds. A new world record.

After the applause and the drying with towels and more tricks and more applause but no more drying with towels, Zatanna took her final curtain call and then returned to her dressing room. Scott joined the throng of male humanity beating its way there for an autograph or (more optimistically) a phone number. He didn't get in until he shouted through the closed door "**There isn't a Mrs. Miracle!**"

The door opened and Zatanna beckoned him inside.

He was a little anxious to find how what a real, Earth magician's dressing room looked like. It had a lot of clothes in it, for one, none of which seemed to fit Zatanna as well as her fishnets and tuxedo (although they were all her size). Zatanna leaned back in her chair and regarded him coolly, appraisingly. They watched each other as Zatanna eased first one stocking off, then the other. Her legs were perfect. She was perfect.

Thin, not as full-figured or built as Barda (_damnit, stop thinking about her, this is getting ridiculous!_), but not one of those stick insects the Earthlings liked to sexualize either. Just… right, for her slight frame and regular exercise. Normal.

"Twelve seconds," he said first. "Congratulations."

"This is a celebration then? Ngiapmahc, dellihc."

An ice bucket appeared with a bottle of champaign cradled inside. Scott picked the champaign out of the ice.

"I was going to fix some tea," Zatanna said. "Cliché, I know, but it really is good."

"Maybe later." Scott pulled the cork out with his mouth, which spurted a little foam past his shoulder. Zatanna giggled.

"Thoughts on the show?" she asked, the ice thoroughly broken.

Scott poured for them both into little teacups. "I wasn't able to tell where your stagecraft ended and the real magic began."

"Highest praise I can get."

"But what was up with the himbo assistants?"

"Gender inversion. It's the feminist in me."

Scott snapped his fingers as he recalled the word. "Oh, like those rogue amazons that wanted to turn the world into dick chicks?"

"A little less hermaphroditic," Zatanna chuckled.

She gestured for Scott to sit. He sat.

"Ah. We don't have that on Apokolips. There, men and women are equally worthless before Darkseid."

"It must've been terrible," she said seriously.

"There were bright spots…"

"So, why are you here? Couldn't wait to see my face again?"

"And I wanted to let you see me in action."

He pulled an envelope from his inside pocket. It was tiny, just about the size of a greeting card. Zatanna passed her finger an inch above the seam, which undid itself as evenly as any letter-opener ever could. She slipped the card out and looked at it.

Mr. Miracle  
Super Escape Artist  
Invites You To Witness Feets of Derring-do And Spectacle  
May 15th

"I know, I know, they misspelled 'feats'. But they give me that every show and I have no one to give them to but Oberon and Ted. And Oberon's _in_ the show." Inarticulately, Scott paused, lips somewhat pursed. "I don't have your sex appeal, but I think you'll enjoy the show."

"And I think you have more sex appeal than you credit yourself with. Men in chains… men in masks… you hit a lot of kinks."

"I'll take your word for it."

They clinked glasses and drank. May 15th. It was a date.

* * *

As Black Canary tended to Ollie, Green Lantern was throwing up a forcefield around Barda. It shone green, buffeting her away from its edges with the sheer force that it imposed on the physical world. Barda's hand curled around the Mega-Rod. Her comrade, her lover, her protector. It fit her hand as surely as a glove.

"A Green Lantern," she sniffed disdainfully. "Your power does not come from within, but from _jewelry._ Did your Oan masters ever tell you that they tried to impose their order on Apokolips once? We 'took care' of them… like so!"

The key to defeating Green Lanterns was will. She focused all of hers into the hammer-blow against the forcefield. It was unexpected. It was strategic. But most of all, it was powerful. The forcefield bulged and shattered with the same momentum, breaking the muted din with the sound of crystal-death. Hal screamed as his ring sparked with feedback. Barda clubbed a streetlight, which landed squarely on his head. He fell over, concussed.

Dinah moved from her lover to her lover's best friend with the same amount of disbelief, too shocked for it to actually grow. Hal getting conked on the noggin was nothing new, but something powerful enough to defy his power ring? She wouldn't have believed it if it hadn't happened.

No longer stunned, the rest of the Justice League attacked at once. Superman, Hawkman, and Hawkgirl mobbed Barda. They tackled her into a shopping mall which was long since evacuated. The four of them traded blows, Barda's Mega-Rod waving to stave off the onslaught. Flash grabbed her from behind and tried to vibrate her into submission. The other three Leaguers compassionately backed off to see if the attack would work. That was their undoing. Barda's hand swooped up then down, taking hold of Hawkgirl by a single gigantic wing. Shayera squawked at being manhandled. Her body was flung around helter-skelter, batting off the Leaguers. They backed away lest her body break against one of them. Finally, Barda delivered the coup de grace, hammering Shayera into the ground so hard that her helmet cracked the tile.

Again surprising them with her speed, Barda backflipped over a glass safety railing and down to a lower level of the mall, where she landed in a cat-like crouch, her Mega-Rod grasped tightly in her hand. Superman didn't waste time following her that way, he just drilled through the floor and out the roof. Barda was waiting for him. A thrown "YOU ARE HERE" display kiosk knocked him through the sprinkler system, setting off an artificial rain.

Hawkman swooped down to Barda's level and dove for her like a hawk. His nth-metal mace glowed with force, as if his rage were given form. Sparks hissed from it as it met her Mega-Rod. The sheer momentum of the attack drove Barda back, some particularly hard blows staking her into the ground before she pulls her feet clear. Hawkman having the upper ground wherever he went put Barda at a clear disadvantage.

By this time, Flash had arrived on scene. He waited, not wanting to get in the way of the enraged Hawkman.

Hawkman swung the mace down once more and Barda caught it with her bare hand. Her palm bled around its spikes, but she held it firmly. The Mega-Rod speared into Hawkman's gut, causing him to release his hold on the mace. Barda flipped it over, caught it by the handle, and used it to brain him. Hawkman's avian helmet was the only thing that saved him from an untimely end. He unspooled onto the ground, wings draped over his body.

Barry had seen enough to know that trying to take the warrior woman in hand-to-hand combat would be suicide… or at least a fast-acting cure for insomnia. Instead, the Flash began to literally run circles around her. At Mach 5, he cut her off from doing further damage to Hawkman. In the eye of the human storm, Barda was forced away from the Thanagarian. The fierce winds of the Flash's passage were ramming into her far more forcefully than Green Lantern's power ring had. Every swing she took fell short. The deafening roar of the Flash's speed had been muted… a sure sign of the air being sucked out of her imprisoning vortex.

Barda's face was turning blue. With her thumb, she toggled the Mega-Rod to Speed Force setting. Pressed the trigger stud. Instantaneously, an artificial derivative of Darkseid's Omega Force exploded out of the Mega-Rod's tip. It zig-zagged into Flash's body, hitting him so hard he careened into a revolving door. Barda watched as the revolving door turned into a whirlpool of red and gold before finally breaking free of its frame. It spun to a stop, a top out of inertia, and fell to the side. Its glass doors shattered around Barry Allen.

"Pah."

The floor shook as Superman landed. His eyes burnt with the struggle to stop his heatvision from incinerating her. His teeth unclenched.

"I don't want to fight."

"I do," she answered.

* * *

Scott's show had more… showmanship than Barda. Armed guards, their eyes hidden behind mirrored shades, cordoned off an area of the Central City Park. Workers moved fast out of SUVs, assembling a stage in a clearing. Audience members, charged admission to get past the cordon, sat down on the ground or brought chairs. Scott's fanbase was young and dedicated. Some came miles to see him before. Others, through state lines.

Zatanna folded her legs and Indian-sat atop a picnic blanket she summoned. She could've brought in a tent, but there was no reason to upstage Mr. Miracle. She did raise an eyebrow when a water tank was brought out. It too had a tarp over it, but there was an ominous bubbling coming from within.

"It's been said that the best escape artist in the world can do escape the Chinese Water Torture Cell in twelve seconds…" As if he had been standing there all along, Mr. Miracle was there. His cape hovered behind him as he walked to the makeshift stage. "Well, they must not be here, because I can do it in five."

Zatanna crossed her arms, her face reading "oh really?"

"But where's the fun in that?" Scott asked as he circled the water tank. "Why not make things a little more interesting?"

He whipped the tarp off the water tank. The crowd gasped. Inside was a school of piranhas, their smushed-in faces and demonic teeth gleaming at the audience. Scott tapped the tank. The piranhas snapped at his fingers, their teeth clinking against the glass.

"And just to demonstrate how vicious my little pets can be?"

Oberon came out of an SUV, a spare rib thrown over his shoulder. It was so large that the end of it dragged on the ground… not that the piranhas minded. As soon as the meat was in the water, they devoured it in a storm of teeth and blood. The tinted water settled.

"Five seconds, ladies and gentlemen," Scott said, putting on a straitjacket that Oberon buckled. "If any among you have stopwatches, put them at the ready."

With a single leap, he was atop the water tank, a lintel spanning the open top. He looked at the audience, winked, then let himself drop in.

Through the haze of bloody water, Zatanna watched (and gritted her teeth a little in fright) as Scott's body nudged the ravenous piranhas out of the way. Scott wiggled a little, almost casually, and then shed the straitjacket. It billowed in the water and Scott pulled himself out, settling atop the water tank, his legs dangling down the sides.

The applause was deafening.

"Sedatives in the meat," Zatanna said afterward in Scott's tour bus, watching him towel off. "That's how you got the piranhas."

Scott tapped his temple. "A magician never reveals his secrets."

Zatanna grinned at his antics. Scott finished drying off his bare upper body, then put the towel down on a couch and sat down on it. Small pools formed as water dripped off his feet.

"Awfully presumptuous, don't you think, inviting me to watch you break my record?"

Scott was finger-combing his wet hair straight. "You're just going to figure out a way to do it in three seconds."

"You act like I haven't already."

"This isn't going to end up like The Prestige, is it?"

"Can't." Zatanna sat down next to him. "You don't have a Mrs. Miracle for me to drown."

"And there's no Mr. Zatara for me to drown." Scott leaned back. "You're a very hard woman to feud with."

"How about we settle it the old-fashioned way?"

"I'm new around here," Scott said apologetically.

"You find your best traps, I'll bring mine… whoever can't escape is the loser."

"No trap can hold me," Scott huffed, not feeling self-important in the least.

"Me either." She smiled. "Things should get interesting, then."

* * *

Superman had blocked the hammer of Thor with an Amazonian shield. He'd felt the burst of heatvision from Ultraman, his evil counterpart from another dimension. He'd even been reduced to mortality and kicked by Batman, cracking a rib.

Barda's Mega-Rod was right up there.

He caught it and tried not to think about the cracking noise in his wrist.

"Don't tell me it never gets to you," he gritted out as he tried to hold the club at bay. "The fighting, the constant warfare! No one should live like that! It tears souls apart!"

"It does." She added her other hand to the Mega-Rod, pressing its now-fanged head down towards Clark.

"Then stop! Right now. I can protect you from Darkseid."

"I'm not afraid of him."

Superman's brow furrowed. "Then why are you doing this?"

Barda ripped the Mega-Rod away, leaving Superman off-balance. She didn't press the attack. "Hard as it may be for you to understand, not all of us are… bad. Some of us want more. Tell me where Scott is."

"Not until I know you can be trusted."

Barda nodded. "You know, Kryptonians have always been a problem for Darkseid. Your forefathers repelled an attack from our armada. Although you were too isolationist to ever join with the New Gods in an alliance, we prepared a weapon against you nonetheless. Fragments of your world's unique mantle, subjected to the fiercest radiation."

She opened a lead compartment on her Mega-Rod. A sliver of sickly green light show out, emitted from the chip of Kryptonite inside. Just as Superman felt that familiar, evil twinge Barda was in motion. She swung from the hip and hit Superman below the arm with all her strength.

He crashed out the wall of the shopping mall, traveling upward and outward until he hit the Time Square Jumbotron from the side. He cut a swath halfway through it before all his inertia had bled away. His body hung half-in the sparking, static-ridden screen, cape falling under him like dripping blood. Barda's hawk-like eyes ascertained his unconsciousness, then looked down from the hole in the wall to a camera crew two stories below, on the street. She fired a few light pulse blasts from her Mega-Rod, cracking the pavement around them. They promptly lost their powers of locomotion.

"You there! I am looking for Scott Free! He may be using an alias. Who is this world's greatest escape artist?"

"Why don't you Google him?" the cameraman stutteringly suggested, his livelihood jittering in his hands.

Barda scowled. "Why don't you 'Google' yourself!?"

She fired another shot, this one aimed at his annoying camera, but it bounced off… nothing at all. Barda followed the scorch mark that hung in mid-air along a heat ripple that had no source to a woman who had not been there a second ago, one sitting on nothing and wearing somewhat more than nothing.

The woman in the next-to-nothing pressed a button which Barda also couldn't see. A moment later, something had hit her in the chest and was carrying her backwards, blowing her out the other end of the mall.

"Thank you, Wonder Woman!" the cameraman cried, and the Amazon saluted him before angling her invisible jet around for another pass.

* * *

"Are you stalking me?" Zatanna joked when Scott showed up on her doorstep, despite the fact that she didn't recall giving him her home address. "Because that would be nice, so long as you're not a demon."

"Not for a while. Can I come in?"

"Make yourself at home," Zatanna said, stepping aside to usher him in. Out of his sight, she tightened the belt on her bathrobe, thought about it, then loosened it so that her robe hung open a little.

Scott was nearly unrecognizable inside his suit. It fit him well, and yet he seemed so out-of-place in it. The skinny tie and the too-short sleeves gave her the impression of a child playing dress-up in his father's clothes… she couldn't say why.

Zatanna's house was wizardly enough… bigger on the outside than it was on the inside, with all sorts of spiraling staircases and portraits of glowering old necromancers and relics that were older than he was. Scott did a double-take when he saw a Pearl Jam poster wedged between a (closed) portal to the Demon Dimension and a living portrait of Solomon the All-Changing.

"I was a rambunctious child," Zatanna explained. "And their music was good."

"I wouldn't know."

"I'll play you some later. Follow me and don't wander off the carpet."

"Dangerous?" Scott asked, interest piped.

"Depends. Spring cleaning."

"Ah."

She picked up a candelabra whose wicks snapped into flame the moment her hand wrapped around the candlestick. Holding it as a torch, she led Scott through an endless hall of doors that turned out to be reflected in a window that could have really used some Windex. Zatanna wrinkled her noise at her reflection and finger-combed her hair with her free hand when Scott wasn't looking. Then just went for broke and dressed herself with magic. The fishnet-fetish outfit. God, she was shameless. Together, they went into the library.

In the center of the monstrously tall room, a steampunk staircase hinged like an arm at several places to reach any of the skyscraper bookshelves. Zatanna walked past it to the one door free of cobwebs and took him into the parlor, where there was a cot in the corner, a laptop on the table, and a dresser overflowing with clothes barricaded a door with seven locks. Occasionally, something bumped against the other side, rattling the very mundane knick-knacks atop the dresser… like a Gotham City snowglobe with a miniature Batsignal inside. Under it, a pantleg was sticking out of a mostly-closed drawer.

"Are those my jeans?" Scott asked, examining the cuff.

"They're very comfortable loungewear. Shall we?"

Zatanna was gesturing to a ornate dining table, which her laptop was at the head of. In the middle, like a demented centerpiece, a coffin laid.

"The old buried alive trick, eh?"

Zatanna threw open the coffin. "Not quite."

It was an iron maiden.

"I got it from Hawkman. Don't ask me why he hung onto it so long."

"Nostalgia?" Scott suggested, pricking his finger on one of the spikes. "You don't play around, do you?"

"Oh, I play… just rough."

"Right."

Scott leaped up and hopped inside. He craned his head to look at the spikes that lined the door, ready to bleed him dry.

"So, this is it? Nothing set on fire, no ticking time bombs?"

"I thought the torture implement was sufficient."

"Shows what you know." He wiggled a bit. "Compared to Apokolips, this is downright comfy. You going to close that?"

Zatanna took hold of the lid. "You're crazy."

"Yeah."

She closed the lid. Immediately, the bottom dropped out of the iron maiden and the table and Scott fell to the floor. He rolled out from under the table. Aside from a few beads of blood dotting his chest and face, he was fine.

"How'd you do that?" Zatanna demanded, hands planted at her hips.

"A magician never reveals his secrets. Now, I was going to see if I could trap you?"

Zatanna held out her hands, miming a suspect about to be cuffed. "I'm all yours."

Scott looked her over with plain hunger in his eyes, before he made eye contact. "I was hoping we could continue this at my place."

One Boomtube later, they were inside. Scott threw Oberon a fifty and told him to take Ted to the movies. Zatanna had a pretty good idea what he had in mind, but then she had practically put the thought in his head with the iron maiden. Danger was a better aphrodisiac than any spell.

He led her upstairs, loosening his tie in an automatic at-home gesture. She followed him into his bedroom, where he took off his jacket. Outside the bulky thing, he instantly seemed more muscular. She wondered what he'd look like without pants… purely academically, of course.

"A security company contacted me to develop handcuffs for them. I'm a part-time inventor, with a little help from Oberon." He held up two complicated, futuristic strips of metal. "Lay down over there," he said, indicating the bed.

"Subtle," she said, but flopped down on her back. She tossed her top hat aside.

"My intentions are totally honorable."

"Shame," she said, and took hold of the bedposts. "I suppose you'll want my hands here?"

"Uh-huh."

He handcuffed her wrist to the appropriate bedpost. She cooed when the lock clicked. Totally gratuitous, but it had the desired effect. His tie brushed over her nose as he locked up her other hand. She jangled the chains in appropriate prisoner manner.

"Leaving my legs free?"

He rested a hand on her thigh. The fishnet tickled at his palm. "Why would I ever want to keep those legs from moving?"

"Oh, I don't know…"

She bent up at the waist, curling until she was nearly fetal, then touching the handcuffs with her toes. Scott was boggled by her flexibility. He touched her thighs again, squeezing them as he pressed them back down against the bed.

"Did I mention? While you're trying to escape, I'll be distracting you."

"Really?" _Finally_. Not that she wasn't a good sport, but the double innuendo was getting really boring.

"Yes…" His hand brushed up her thigh to reach her garter belt, where his fingernail cut into her flesh. She bit her lip at the pain. "Seeing a woman who looks like you in a predicament like this… it gives a man ideas."

"I'd love to hear them," Zatanna said, and wasn't the least bit surprised when Scott's lips went to her ear and began telling her exactly what he would like to do to her.

In turn, she told him how much she would enjoy it.

* * *

The missile hadn't been Earth tech, at least not mainstream. The damn thing wasn't an explosive device at all, but some sort of plasma projectile. Not that she was surprised, considering how many of the JLA were aliens or alien-empowered, but none of the species she'd heard of hit that _hard_.

Then she fully regained her senses and felt a not-unpleasant tingle around her ankle. She looked down to see something golden wrapped around it, a rope, coiled at her feet. And rapidly unspooling.

Barda looked up and saw the bright exhaust of a jet engine as it pulled the horizon closer.

The rope ran out.

"Darkseid's eyes," she swore, as the rope picked her up and dragged her through the air behind an invisible jet.

She must've hit every chimney, billboard, and TV aerial in New York before the jet went into a steep climb. Barda felt the blood rushing to her head. She still had Hawkman's mace and her own Mega-Rod in hand, but the G-force was pressing down on her too hard. She had no leverage to fight it. The blue skies parted to wink stars at her, then she was cut loose. Barda felt the heat of re-entry scorch her, with about as much pain as a bad sunburn, before she hit water.

Mini-tidal waves lapped at the shore of the East River.

Barda pulled herself ashore onto an artificial island, mere hundreds of feet in diameter. Jagged rocks cut against her flesh and were blunted by impenetrable skin. She took back her footing and looked at her surroundings. Deserted. Surrounded on all sides by murky water, the same stuff that was dripping off her. As she spat some out, the pilot landed.

Themysciran armor gleamed over her body. An aegis was worn on one arm, a sword clutched in the other. Barda almost licked her lips. At last, a warrior instead of a constable.

"You came here looking for a fight?" Wonder Woman said. It wasn't a question. "You found one."


	15. Double Billing

U Thant Island was rock and dirt, with a few trees planted by spiritualists to spruce things up. The only manmade structure there (besides the island itself, of course) were a tower and a thirty-foot tall Peace Arch.

It was flattened first.

Barda rolled to her feet, shaking her head to clear it. Wonder Woman had hit her with a good blow, feinting with her sword and then opening a cut just above her right eye with the rim of her shield. The blood would trickle down into her eye and blind her until the cut healed. Smart. Some taunting would even the odds, if she could rile the Amazon up enough to forget her strategy.

"Your superfriends couldn't handle me. What makes you think you can?"

Wonder Woman twirled her sword until she was holding it downward. "Because they're not getting in my way now."

She leapt into the air and came down, her coiled lasso flapping at her hip. Barda blocked. Hawkman's war-mace turned away the sword, then her Mega-Rod caught Wonder Woman in the shield. Despite the protection, Wonder Woman flew through a tree, leaving behind a stump.

Barda crouched low to the ground and came at her, war-mace and Mega-Rod raking the soil.

* * *

"Maybe we should share double billing," Scott suggested. Zatanna had a foot on his clavicle, half coquettish protection and half flirty invitation, but all it was really accomplishing was helping him to pull her stocking down.

"But whose name would come first?"

Scott pulled the fishnet all the way off before kissing the top of her foot lightly. "I was hoping we could come at the same time."

* * *

Wonder Woman had her arms up and waiting before Barda fell upon her and despite striking with both her weapons, Barda's attack was trapped against Wonder Woman's shield.

"You're an Amazon." Barda pressed down hard, trying to grind Diana into the earth. "Darkseid hates Amazons."

"The feeling's mutual," Wonder Woman said before grabbing hold of a particularly strong East Wind and using it to pull herself to her feet. Barda was thrown clear.

She landed on her feet, but Wonder Woman had already ascended fifty feet and come back down in a swooping arc she'd learned from the hawks. Although Barda turned aside her sword-point, the face of her aegis collided with Barda and knocked her back on her heels. Barda set her feet apart and prepared for the next dive. When it came, she fired a burst of flame from her Mega-Rod.

* * *

"Kiss me you fool! Kiss me!"

"I'm not a fool."

"I know you're not, sorry, just got swept up in the moment… you're not kissing me. Fool."

* * *

Wonder Woman was knocked out of the sky. Her skin unmarred, her armor red-hot and flowing over her in glowing rivulets, she landed and immediately took the fight to Barda. She shielded herself with her shield until the leather straps that held it to her forearm snapped with the heat. By then she was close enough to grab hold of the Mega-Rod and point it away from her. The Mega-Rod electrocuted both women at the stranger's touch, but both of them were easily able to grit it out.

Wonder Woman swung at Barda with her sword as they struggled with the Mega-Rod, but Barda blocked repeatedly with Hawkman's mace. Wonder Woman kept chopping, summoning all her strength to slice the mace apart. _Hope Carter wasn't attached to that one_ she thought to herself as she prepared to impale Barda through a lung.

Barda blocked, this time with her left arm. The sword went clean through. Wonder Woman's eyes widened at Barda's total lack of reaction. Barda twisted her arm and the blade snapped off.

"Themysciran steel," Barda sneered. "As weak as Themysciran warriors."

* * *

"Pull my left nipple… just a little… pinch it…"

"You're ever so slightly controlling, you know."

"Suck on the other one. Hard. Hey! That one actually hurt!"

"Sorry."

"Don't be."

* * *

Wonder Woman punched her in the face. Backhanded her with an indestructible bracelet. Barda smiled fiercely under a bloodied, maybe broken nose.

"Like I said. Weak."

With a burst of impossible strength she wrenched the Mega-Rod from Diana's grasp and hit her across the face with it. The blow sent her tiara flying end over end to land among the rocks.

Wonder Woman gasped for breath. _That nearly broke my jaw._

The pain in her face was compounded by one in her gut when Barda kneed her there, then shoved her down to her knees. The grip on her shoulder was pushing down so hard that the rock cracked under Diana's knees.

"Yield."

"Like Hades."

* * *

"Bite my tits! Slap my ass! Pull my hair!"

"…all at once? Because I actually think I could manage that, if I multi-task…"

"No! Use your tongue!"

"My… tongue…?"

"Relax, it's easy to learn… and such fun to teach!"

* * *

The bracers protected her, even muted some of the Mega-Rod's force, but Diana could still feel the blows all the way up her shoulder. Her heart was pounding. Her eyes were sharp. This was living.

Big Barda attacked again and this time Diana brought her arms together in a cross, trapping the Mega-Rod between them. She scissored her arms, loosening Big Barda's grip, then knocked the Mega-Rod high with a kick. The Mega-Rod flew end over end before landing and embedding itself in the dirt.

* * *

"Deeper… deeper… oooh, nibble, just a little… not so hard, not so hard!"

"Like this?"

"Don't talk with your mouth full."

* * *

Even without her Mega-Rod, Barda was formidable. Wonder Woman turned away many of her blows, using the bracers almost like boxing gloves. Barda didn't seem to notice she was punching metal instead of flesh. Her knuckles weren't even scraped. Diana decided to change that. She met Barda's next blow head-on, knuckle to knuckle, and felt bones crack. Barda's. But that sound was nothing next to her laugh.

"You fight well," Barda said when she'd finished with her booming laughter. She wiped the blood from her nose and mouth. "It's a shame you never underwent Special Powers Training. Your potential could have been realized to its fullest."

With the heel of her hand, Wonder Woman scrubbed a speck of blood from the bracer that had broken Barda's nose. "And it's a shame you were born on Apokolips. Your battles could have meant something besides oppression."

"They have meant something. Every fight and every victory has brought me closer to Scott!"

* * *

"Oh God, your tongue's inside me for miles! Your finger! Your finger! Use your finger! YES! Now arch it, just a bit… YES! YES!"

"MMMmmmmm."

"Your tongue's so long… you're not licking me, you're fucking me! FUCK ME! KCUF EM!"

* * *

Amazon martial arts were superior to those of Apokolips, that was certain. Barda didn't care. She took the pounding Diana laid on her like a present, then returned it. Her fists were blunt force, wrecking balls, suitable for reducing cities to rubble. Diana felt her armor dent, her flesh bruise, and, impossible, Wonder Woman bled. In turn, she scheduled Barda for demolition. Right arm, the one with the broken knuckles, first. She punched at the wrist, chopped at the elbow, kicked at the shoulder. Wonder Woman felt the old bloodlust raise in her as the bone neared the breaking point.

Finally, Diana spun out of the way of a clumsy right hook, then caught the arm within the crock of her elbow and prepared to snap it.

Barda ripped clean out of her sleeve, leaving Wonder Woman holding a shed skin. Then Diana was flipped on her back, again onto her face. Then she was taken over Barda's knee.

* * *

"NOT YET! DON'T STOP! I'M SO CLOSE! YOU BASTARD, I WAS SO CLOSE! Finish me! Hsini—MMFPH!"

"Apologizes for stopping, but I'm told that part of the appeal of this is ceding control to someone else… and you can't very well do that without my hand over my mouth, can you?"

"MMF MM MMMPH!"

"Now, I'm going to take away my hand… and then I'm going to show you how we fuck on Apokolips. And you're going to like it."

"Y-You tease!"

* * *

Barda pressed Wonder Woman down upon her knee as if she meant to rip right through her. Diana groaned and struggled, but she was caught fast.

"You Amazons are all about loving submission. Love this!"

Wonder Woman gritted her teeth as Barda's open palm hit her bottom. She struggled on Barda's knee, but there was nothing she could do. Her ass was Barda's to do with as she pleased.

Psychological warfare, intended to pain instead of hurt. Crude, but effective. If she'd been brought up with the taboos of contemporary civilization, it might even have worked on Diana. But instead of orienting on the pain/pleasure, as was intended, her only focus was escape. She kicked wildly, trying to leverage against something with her feet. Only her scrapped armor and star-covered bikini bottom covered her ass as it turned pink, then red. Content to let Barda wear herself out on such an inefficient attack, Wonder Woman feigned misery and slowly inched for the lasso at her hip…

* * *

"Harder! Give it to me harder! KCUF EM REDRAH!"

"Uh… Zee… I can't stop."

"YES! DON'T STOP!"

"I seem not to have much choice in the matter."

"JUST SHUT UP AND FUCK ME! FUCK ME AS HARD AS YOU CAN! KCUF EM!"

"Not that I'm complaining, mind you."

* * *

Barda had by then ripped the armored skirt from Wonder Woman's body, leaving her in nothing more than her one-piece from the waist down. The seat of her costume had ridden up for a thong effect, another of Barda's machinations. The knowledge that there could be no possible onlookers nullified any humiliation factor there, although Diana still filed away her rage for later. Her rage at having her uniform, the symbol of her position, so explicitly used to sexualize and degrade her… it made her teeth gnash.

Barda was still slapping resoundingly against Diana's fleshy buttocks. In spite of the startling shock and stinging pain, Wonder Woman didn't make a sound of protest. Her resistance drove Barda into a fury, but Wonder Woman could tell her arm was growing weak. Compared to the first few blows, the last spanks were practically massages. If she were ever to be rehabilitated, say on Transformation Island, Barda would make a good mistress.

Wonder Woman had just taken hold of her lasso when she heard a noise. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the Mega-Rod returning to Big Barda's hand. Then she felt it come down on her ass like the back of a hairbrush. Her whole body was jolted. Barda rocked back so that Diana fell across her lap and paddled her again.

Pain blotted out Wonder Woman's escape attempt, shot through her body, from her sensitive ass, to her toes, to her brain. With each smack, she uncontrollably jerked in the other woman's lap. Her legs kicked out in involuntary reflex. Crying out, she moaned with the pain as each blow landed on her tender ass. She gripped Barda's leg and squeezed hard, clawed at it, tried to even rend the Achilles' tendon loose as her mind was taken over by the pain.

"Do you tire, Amazon? Your gods may grant you power, but I am power!"

"Absolute power. Corrupted absolutely," Diana gritted out. Then she wiggled her ass in invitation. Whatever Barda dished out, she could take.

* * *

"Almost there! ALMOST…!"

"Almost where?"

"FUCK ME, SCOTT! FUCK ME HARDER! MAKE ME COME! YES! YES! YEEE-!"

"Zana, you know, you made the funniest face just then… oh, that was an orgasm. Should I have had one as well?"

"Could you wait a moment? I need to catch my breath."

"I'm not going anywhere."

* * *

Big Barda was enjoying herself. She tremendously enjoyed showing her subordinates who was boss. Every now and then, she liked spanking a Fury's ass until it turned bright red. Feeling someone wriggling in her lap while she spanked away always made her clit tingle, like it was doing now. And Wonder Woman was more delectable than her Furies had ever been… even Lashina didn't appreciate pain this much. And she had been too conscientious, too compassionate, to use the Mega-Rod on one of her fragile darlings.

The pain-crazed Amazon was convulsing in her lap. With each blow, the girl kicked and her soft belly slid over Barda's sensitive cunt. She couldn't wait to finish the bitch off and find Scott. Five minutes she would give to the reunion, then she would start ripping clothes off.

Barda smacked Wonder Woman's soft, quivering flesh again and again.

Diana's ass repeatedly cringed under the falling blows. Gradually, it seemed to her that she was not getting hit as hard as before. But the sound of the smacks was just as loud, and each swat still landed with bone-jarring force. Slowly, it dawned on her that the blows were not getting softer; her ass was getting numbed by the pain. It was time to make her move while she could still walk.

* * *

"Goddess, are you still hard?"

"Last time I checked. I think you might have bewitched me in a more than poetic sense… could I at least slow down?"

"Yes… slower… gentler… wols nwod… kiss me again, Scott. I'm told I taste like incense. I want to know if it's true."

* * *

With the speed of a striking cobra, Wonder Woman threw her lasso forward to wrap around the island's tower. She yanked herself forward, curling her leg upward like a scorpion's tail as she went to deliver her heel to Barda's face. Barda's helmet was knocked clean off. Wonder Woman rolled to her feet. She ripped her mangled breastplate off, along with the rest of her armor. Then she began to coil her lasso around one hand like a set of brass knuckles.

"Amazons treat our foes with respect and save our gloating for after the battle!"

" For you, there won't be an 'after the battle!'" Barda gloated as she raised her Mega-Rod.

Wonder Woman cracked her lasso like a rip. The end of it cut swathes in Barda's armor, sending rings of her chainmail flying. Another whipcrack opened up a cut along Barda's cheek. A third wrapped around her Mega-Rod and yanked it away. Weaponless, Barda roared and rushed her opponent.

* * *

"Doggy-style… I want it doggy-style!"

"Huh?"

"BEHIND! TAKE ME FROM BEHIND! WHERE ARE YOU FROM, MARS?"

"A ways further. How would I take you from behind? Should I take the handcuffs off?"

"No! Just… let me…"

"Wow. You're quite flexible, you know."

"I know… what are you waiting for, an invitation? FUCK ME IN THE ASS!"

"I don't know. My studies imply that would be quite painful without lubricant!"

"Tancirbul rapeea!"

"I'm glad I didn't gag you… pear-flavored? You couldn't have gotten orange or raspberry?"

"FUCK MY ASSHOLE! NOW! RAM YOUR BIG COCK UP MY ASS!"

"Give me a minute, I'm reading the instructions…"

"FUCK! FUCK MY ASS! DO IT NOW!"

"You're not aiding my reading comprehension with those outbursts. I think it's about time for the gag."

* * *

All pretense of civility or tactics had been abandoned. Those could only take the warriors so far. They fought tooth and nail. The golden lasso of truth unspooled from Diana's arm and crackled around the two. Barda felt the frenzy calling her, the same frenzy Wonder Woman fought so hard to overcome, and welcomed it. Her rage drove her to strength even she didn't know she was capable of. Her blows cracked the atmosphere, those that landed kicked up squalls in the surrounding water.

Even in the face of an onslaught that would give Ares pause, Wonder Woman did not hesitate. She met her adversary blow for blow. The gods smiled upon her as she honored them with her courage. Her powers increased tenfold. Her body literally shone with energy. If this were to be her final hour, it would also be her finest.

* * *

"Zatanna, it's been five minutes. I'm going to take off the gag now. If you're in any pain or discomfort, tell me and I'll stop, alright? Here goes… Zana? Zana?"

"…"

"Zatanna Zatara?"

"…don't…"

"Yes?"

"…stop…"

"If you insist…"

* * *

In the end, it was her berserker rage that undid her. Barda unknowingly wandered into the net Diana had woven from her lasso. It tightened like a python, wrapping around Barda's neck. Diana jerked her down, right into her raised knee, which crashed against Barda's chin. Then a red and white boot stomped on Barda's head, pressing her face into the ground. The lasso around her neck was pulled on steadily, choking Barda to death as Wonder Woman held her in place with a foot..

"Scott…" Barda gasped out, straining at her noose.

"Scott Free is our ally! You will not harm him!"

"I would never harm Scott! I love him!"

Diana stopped pulling. Barda's eyelids were fluttering. Monster she may be, but not even monsters could defy the golden lasso of truth. Wonder Woman released her. Sensing that she had been, if not beaten, then matched, Barda rolled over onto her back. Gravel was still stuck to one side of her face.

"How is it your lasso is able to compel those untruths from me?" Barda asked hoarsely, rubbing her throat.

"It does quite the opposite, in fact." Wonder Woman helped her up. "Promise not to start any more fights and submit to my watchful eye; I'll take you to him."

Barda brushed the various foliage of U Thant Island from her body. Seeing Scott again… she had almost forgotten him. But her ragged armor was no way to meet him. With a touch to her belt buckle, she quantum-shifted her clothes to the harem bikini. Wonder Woman rose an eyebrow.

"I don't love him," Barda said. She licked her finger and rubbed at a spot of dried blood on her forehead.

"I believe you." Wonder Woman whistled for her telepathic robot jet, which decloaked nearby.

"I _don't_."

* * *

The ride in the invisible jet was smooth and uneventful. Barda was the first passenger Diana had taken who didn't start at the inside of the hull being invisible. Diana had set it for that, both as vindictiveness and because, since Diana could navigate by touch, any attempt to hijack the plane would be doomed to failure. But all Barda did was wash off her battle grit with a bottle of water and touch up her make-up. Wonder Woman had to set the plane on autopilot and help her a few times. As Barda explained, it'd been years since she'd been to a formal function which required her to wear make-up. Wonder Woman didn't bother asking why she was putting it on now. She wasn't _that_ vindictive.

After a ten minute flight, they touched down in the suburbs of Octagon City, New Hampshire. Barda thanked Wonder Woman, who smiled benevolently and let her out. And used her jet's sensors to keep a watchful eye on Barda as she walked into the house.

* * *

Inside, an old man, small as a child, sat worrying. He didn't notice Barda, moving as she was with the stealth of a jungle cat. Seeing that there were no traps or enemies within the immediate vicinity, Barda grabbed Oberon by the scruff of his neck and lifted him to eye-level.

"Alright, wake up you zero!" Barda shouted in his ears. Disoriented prisoners didn't have the resources to lie.

"Lord Almighty! Another weirdo!" Oberon took a swing at her, but his stubby arms couldn't reach her face. "How many enemies does Scott have?"

Satisfied, Barda dropped him onto a plush chair. He sank into it. "Wrong, microbe. I'm a friend."

"If that's how they act where you come from, how can you tell!?"

"The world of Apokolips is not a playground. Where's Scott?"

Oberon said nothing, but his eyes darted to the stairs. At roughly the same time, there was a thud from upstairs.

"I thank you for your cooperation," she said, heading up the stairs.

Oberon tried to extricate himself from the chair, but it practically swallowed him up. So there was nothing to stop Barda from walking to Scott's bedroom. Behind the closed door another thud sounded. Barda grabbed the doorknob and pulled the door open.

"**Darkseid's eyes!**"


End file.
